‘We Can’t Offer Pay-As-You-Go Service in Nigeria’, DSTV Insists

Multichoice, owners of DSTV, has reiterated that the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) billing model Nigerians are clamouring for is not technically and commercially possible.

John Ugbe, the Chief Executive Officer of Multichoice Nigeria stated this when he was being questioned by the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee investigating the non-implementation of PAYG subscription model by satellite TV operators.

Ugbe said DSTV does not have the technology to offer the PAYG billing model, noting that the PAYG model being used by the Telecommunications Company is not compliant with satellite TV.

Here are some of his points:

1. He said why Pay-As-You-Go is possible in the telecoms sector is because it has a two-way communication system that allows operators to determine when a consumer is connected, the duration of the connection and when content is being consumed.

2. He said satellite broadcasters, on the other hand, rely on a one-way system that does not enable the operators to determine when subscribers are connected and watching a channel or what channel they are watching.

3. He said the only way the PAYG model can work is if the billing architecture of satellite broadcasting is globally remodeled. And even if so, he said this service would cost consumers to pay higher tariffs.

For years, Nigerians have been agitating for the PAYG service, accusing DSTV of reaping off subscribers for insisting that the service is impossible. This led to the government intervening and trying to pressure the company to look into the Pay-As-You-Go model.

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This also gave rise to the clamour for more Pay-TV companies to come into the Nigerian market to break DSTV’s monopoly. But that has not yielded much result, as TSTV, which promised to deliver on the Pay-As-You-Go service failed to even get its operations off the ground in 2017 when it first launched. This was due to several legal challenges. The company re-launched on October 1, 2020 but consumers are yet to access its service.

However, Startimes Nigeria, which has been in operation for a few years but has not been able to match DSTV’s scale of operations and its quality of content, recently announced that it has created a new flexible subscription plan that allows subscribers to choose daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly plans.