As DStv, GOtv Rates Rise, MultiChoice Pressured On 1 Year Subscription Validity

With the increasing price range of subscriptions for DStv and GOtv, which are products of MultiChoice Nigeria Limited (MCN), the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) recently directed the company to create a feature that allows its users to lock their subscription for a minimum of one year.

MultiChoice Nigeria is the Nigerian subsidiary of MultiChoice Africa, owner of DStv and GOtv.

On Tuesday, MultiChoice announced an increase in the prices of its DStv and GOtv subscription packages, taking effect from April 1, which is on Friday.

The company, in the statement, noted that the current economic realities in the country necessitated the price review and the adjustment would make it serve customers better.

It stated, “In the light of the rising cost of inflation and business operations, we have had to review the price of our packages to keep delighting our customers with great entertainment, anytime and anywhere.”

The company also stated that it had introduced incentives for customers to cushion the effect of the increase. 

“To cushion the price adjustment, we have made the following concessions: Customers who pay on or before the due date (April 1, 2022) will be eligible to pay the old price.

“If they pay consistently on time (before their due dates) for a period of 12 months, they pay the old price. Customers who pay for 10 months upfront on the new price will get 11th and 12th months free,” it stated.

With the adjustment, premium DStv subscribers will pay N21,000 monthly while Compact + and Compact customers will pay N14,250 and N9,000 respectively. Other new DStv package prices include: DStv Confam N5,300; Yanga N2,950; Padi N2,150; Business N2,669 and Xtraview + PVR access fee N2,900. The new fee for Gotv subscriptions are: GOtv max N4,150, GOtv Jolli N2,800, GOtv Jinja N1,900 and GOtv lite N900.

How DStv, Gotv rates rose 4 times since 2015

With last Tuesday’s price hike announcement, Multichoice has increased rates four times in seven years since 2015, with an average of two-year gap trend.

Multichoice had on August 23, 2020 increased subscription rates effective September 1, raising rates by over N1,000 per month on the DStv Premium bouquets. It conveyed the increment by Short Message Service (SMS) to its subscribers. Other lower bouquet packages were not affected in the price increase, perhaps in consideration of the economic situation, which industry experts say is affecting the lower people more.

It had earlier implemented a federal government increase of 2.5 per cent in Value Added Tax (VAT) from 5 per cent to 7.5 per cent on August 1, 2020, raising the cost across all the bouquets.

In July 2018, MultiChoice raised the subscription rate for the DSty Premium package from N14,700 to N15,800, Compact Plus from N9,900 to N10,650, Compact from N6,300 to N6,800. The Family package went from N3,800 to N4,000, and Access from N1,900 to N2,000, which was implemented from August 1.

In March 2015, DStv announced a 20 per cent increase for all its satellite pay TV bouquets in Nigeria, which took effect from April 1, 2015.