Why DStv launched new bouquet

The “Family pack” will effectively replace the poorly performing DStv Select bouquets. By Duncan McLeod.

Added by Duncan McLeod on 20 March 2013.
Saved under News, Top
Tags: , , , , , , ,

TV-640

Pay-television operator MultiChoice’s new bouquet of channels, the DStv “Family pack”, effectively replaces the two poorly performing DStv Select bouquets it introduced in partnership with Vodacom six years ago.

Although the broadcaster will continue to offer the Select bouquets to existing subscribers, it plans to phase out the products over time in favour of the Family pack, MultiChoice South Africa CEO Collins Khulamo tells TechCentral.

“Customers currently on the Select bouquets will continue to receive them, for now at least,” he says.

The Select packages and the Family pack will both cost the same, R175/month.

MultiChoice’s move comes 18 months after it ended its relationship with Vodacom, taking over management of the customer base from the mobile operator.

The two companies entered into an agreement in 2007 whereby Vodacom would sell the Select bouquets through its distribution channels.

However, the venture never proved particularly successful. By the end of September 2012, the two DStv Select packages had only 145 000 customers between them, compared to 1,5m each for the higher-priced DStv Premium and DStv Compact bouquets.

However, Khumalo says MultiChoice research shows there is a market opportunity at the R175/month price point and he believes the new product will lead to strong growth in subscriber numbers. “We believe customers find this price point quite appealing.”

By contrast, DStv Premium costs R625/month; Compact goes for R275/month.

The new Family pack, which will offer 45 channels, will be launched on 9 April. Channels include Sony Entertainment, Discovery TLC, Nat Geo Wild, KykNet Musiek and Cartoon Network.  — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media

Share this article

  • Karel Venter

    There is something seriously screwy in the way Multichoice puts together their packages. The Compact and “Family” packages are nothing more than enticements to subscribe to the full R625/m package. Neither of the smaller packages offer any real value. But hey, its their service and I’m just a consumer, why should my opinion count.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.tee.568 Jonathan Tee

    Why don’t they just offer true pick and mix, with a price per channel… I know their system can handle that

  • herman

    none of their “light” packages are actually aimed at any type of consumer, ie, the sports fanatic, the Cardashian fan club, the tech/sci-fi addict, the movie/series lovers etc. its all just a mash of the worst k@k available. vote with your feet, that’s what i did. uncapped internet (stream what you want to watch, when you want to watch it, without adverts) makes DSTV look stupid. too bad most people aren’t tech savvy

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=527737873 Vusi Sibiya

    I do think that there’s more DStv can do to make their packages more desirable to the Mzansi market however, the way the packages are structured comes back to the global unbundle-ling battle which won’t be resolved anytime soon when it comes to DTH (Direct-to-Home). Players like Netflix, Hulu & Intel may be able to influence a change in how content is sold, which currently entails expensive channels having to be packaged in premium bouquets just to subsidize their cost.

  • Karel Venter

    Understood 100% but putting international content aside and looking only at local content (MNET & even limited Supesport selections) you could still do a LOT better than their Compact and Family selections.

  • http://twitter.com/Pasco_e Pascoe

    Multichoice needs some serious competition. These “partnership” deals with potential industry threats are not benefiting those looking for alternatives. Romeo should have known better.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=527737873 Vusi Sibiya

    But the question is what does Super Sport cost? When you consider what has been paid for PSL and not yielding the ROI, you’re forced to make the Rugby, F1, etc. fans to pay for a premium bouquet to subsidize S3 & S4 to be available on the Compact bouquet. The packages are just a manipulation for getting the right figures on the bottom line. They have nothing to do with what the paying customer wants.

  • http://twitter.com/TsipaA Gomi A. Thobejane

    they won’t because no one would subscribe to Premium bouquet any more. They’re making a killing through premium and compact. There’s a lot of junk channels within these bouquets that no one watches but we pay for.

  • Karel Venter

    From what I understand advertising covers quite a substantial % of the production cost (if not all). As mentioned, by JUST adding MNET to the truncated bouquets you’d already be adding value. Also, do not forget that by adding value to the budget packages you’d be attracting more subscribers which is hampered by the poor channel selection atm.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=527737873 Vusi Sibiya

    Agreed, adding MNET would definitely be a value add to the truncated bouquets and that should’ve been done from the onset. I’m guessing, given ARs for viewing figures against the other players that advertising isn’t enough to cover the spend on sports rights.

    Looking at the list of the Top 50 advertisers for the past year, you have #1 Unilever, #2 Shoprite, #3 SABMiller, #4 Pick n Pay and #5 FNB; making up the top 5. These are brands that would focus their Rands on the Free-to-Air channels and as such your costs as a PayTV operator would have to be covered by subscriptions.

    It may be unfair on the people subsidizing the lower tier bouquets by bundling what they would want into the premium bouquet but that’s just how this business works. Put simply… “it sucks” but the only decent bouquet is the premium and you may as well have a PVR decoder whilst you at it so you can help DStv to provide the lower tier bouquets.

  • The Spark

    Spot on. Most of the DSTV channels are complete sh!t. I only watch a handful of them and even then, most of the stuff is repeated. When I work it out, it would be far more worth my time to drop DSTV and download all that I want to watch on highspeed internet.

    With their pricing and packages I believe that DSTV are actually pushing consumers to piracy – despite their claims to the contrary.

    If their packages were more customisable and priced more reasonably, more people would take them up and they would have less piracy.

    Even Naspers themselves have said that Multichoice is their cash cow. i.e. they know they are ripping a new one for the consumers

  • The Spark

    And they even broadcast free-to-air channels as part of their bouquet. The lower end bouquets are mostly free-to-air channels that cost nothing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jaco.hattingh1 Jaco Hattingh

    We moved to the Netherlands a year ago. Here we have the equivalent of DSTV Premium+HD+PVR, with telephone (landline) AND 120mbps UNCAPPED internet included for the equivalent of R.550-00… Multichoice is milking the monopoly they have.

  • Hugo Schagen

    There are, like I said before, the compact bouquet which has S3 in it. Why not give the customer the choice of which Supersport channel he wants on his Compact bouquet? S1, S2, S3 and so on … Not everyone whatches soccer … Some … enough said.

  • Davebee

    Who or what is/are the Mzansi market?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=527737873 Vusi Sibiya

    Absolutely right Hugo… and therein is where you see the deliberate manipulation of the bouquet packages. The people who don’t like soccer and want to watch Rugby, Cricket, F1, PGA, etc. have been determined to be the ones who can afford the premium bouquet and so they have to subsidize the soccer being on the Compact bouquet for which Super Sport paid an arm and a leg for, to the PSL.

    It’s a battle you’re not going to win anytime soon. Believe me when I say I’ve exasperated a great deal of energy and am continuing to exhaust every resource at my disposal to effect a change in this very discriminatory bundling of content. I’m not the only one either and Intel may soon be able to make a breakthrough, however the players like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube will in the very near future, be able to force a change as more connected devices come to the market.

  • MuziMak

    Bandwidth Herman, bandwidth. It stands between customers and their choices. At our average speeds of about 50 Kbps there’s not much streaming we can do. In an event that we can get uncapped internet (and assuming that we are tech savvy) it is still so expensive that technology seizes to be an issue but money becomes an issue…an affordability issue. Oh, and the spectrum (allocation) is not a priority… Muzi

  • herman

    exactly where do you live where you get 50Kbps?minimum adsl speed is now 1mbps, though 2mbps is recommended for streaming 480p. uncapped 2mbps ADSL comes in at a total cost of around R600-700 per month. you can also do a lot more with uncapped than just watch TV.

  • MuziMak

    I took it we are discussing national issues and not pockets of successes here but not there. Let me indulge you, I am fortunate to live in a fairly decent place and my ISP is not doing that well here (they say they working at it). When I last checked ADSL was not available due to cable theft. I then use 3G to augment. I have seen improvements in the last 6 months; but no offering is stable enough for one to enjoy uninterrupted service. So, you and I are bad examples of South Africa’s reality when it comes to bandwidth and TV consumption patterns. That reality being, people in the rural areas, in some towns and townships and even in the exclusve suburbia, have neither the R600 to spend nor the ADSL to spend on (just as a broad example). Multichoice/DSTV will continue to thrive on this status quo.

  • http://www.facebook.com/wilmien.lotz.7 Wilmien Lotz

    We subscribe to Select 2 in order to see KykNet. Will we be able to se that channel on the new Family pack?

  • http://www.facebook.com/sicelo Sicelo Fayo

    I know my taste for TV channels. DStv does not and makes little or no effort to do so. Until such time as I can select channels that make up my package at a point in time, I shall remain disenchanted!

  • Realist

    The Mzansi market is the person who stands at the bus stop, waiting for the bus he burned down the previous day.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=527737873 Vusi Sibiya

    I would say it includes all those South Africans as well as the ones who continue to pay for the premium bouquet, SASOL petrol for the same price when it’s not subject to the global influences, the same price for locally manufactured German vehicles, and tolerate paying exorbitant prices for telco communications and instead of doing anything… they believe posting complaints on social media about the ruling government will somehow effect a change.

  • http://www.sondeza.com/ Dogstar

    i have 3 new ones already! :)

  • http://www.sondeza.com/ Dogstar

    +1

  • http://www.facebook.com/herman.dewet.142 Herman Dewet

    just offer me the Sport channels at R175.00 PER MONTH. This is your only reason for marketing your premium packages at high prices. Marketing the sport channels only even at R 275.00 per month would make a killing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/herman.dewet.142 Herman Dewet

    hey Herman. I am not tech savvy. How do I do that?

Why TechCentral?

We know that as a prospective advertiser, you are spoilt for choice. Our job is to demonstrate why TechCentral delivers the best return for your advertising spend.

TechCentral is South Africa’s online technology news leader. We don’t say that lightly. We believe we produce the country’s best and most insightful online tech news aimed at industry professionals and those interested in the fast-changing world of technology.

We provide news, reviews and comment, without fear or favour, that is of direct relevance to our fast-expanding audience. Proportionately, we provide the largest local audience of all technology-focused online publishers.

We do not constantly regurgitate press releases to draw in search engine traffic — we believe websites that do so are doing their readers and advertisers a disservice. Nor do we sell “editorial features”, offer advertising “press offices” or rely on online bulletin-board forums of questionable value to advertisers to bolster our traffic.

TechCentral, which is edited and written by award-winning South African journalists, cares about delivering top-quality content to draw in the business and consumer readers that are of most interest to technology advertisers.

We’d like the opportunity to demonstrate the value of directing a portion of your advertising budget to TechCentral, whether your company is in the technology field or not. Numerous opportunities exist for companies interested in reaching our audience of key decision-makers in South Africa’s dynamic information and communications technology sector. We offer packages that will deliver among the best returns on investment available in the online technology news space.

For more information about advertising opportunities, and how your organisation can benefit by publicising itself on TechCentral, please call us on 011-792-0449 during office hours. Or send us an e-mail and ask for our latest rate card and brochure.