Senate To Investigate DStv, Gotv Subcription Fees

The Senate has inaugurated a committee to investigate the subscription fees of DStv and GOtv bouquets in the country and also directed all pay-tv service providers to review their bouquet prices downwards.
The resolution of the upper legislative chamber followed a motion sponsored by Abba Moro, Senator representing Benue South.
MultiChoice last week announced increment on DSTV and GOtv subscription fees and blamed the decision on inflation and business operations costs in Nigeria.
The new fees will become effective on April 1.
“In light of the rising costs 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 said in a statement on Tuesday.
Senator Moro said the new fees announced without consideration for the economic hardship subscribers were going through.
“Nigerians are demanding that, rather than paying fixed rates for packages monthly, pay-tv service providers should introduce a subscription model which allows subscribers pay per-view to enable them match their TV consumption to subscription as it is with the case of electricity metering and mobile telephony,” Moro said.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, said that Multichoice, the operators of DStv and GOtv in Nigeria were deliberately exploiting its subscribers.
“What DStv is doing here, they can’t do it in many countries. But here they do it and get away with it. So we need to have a public hearing. Our ad-hoc committee should be given the mandate to do a whole scale investigation.
“The committee will carry out a comprehensive investigation so that we can get more information on how other jurisdictions or countries are charged”, he said.
The Senate urged the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, and the Nigerian Communications Commission to direct all pay-tv providers to introduce a pay-per-view model of subscription against the month to month prepaid model presently in place.
Members of the committee include, AliyuSabiAbdullahi as Chairman, Sulaiman Abdu Kwari, OluremiTinubu, Yusuf A. Yusuf, Lekan Mustapha, ChukwukaUtazi and Akon Eyakenyi.
The committee was given one month to report to the Senate on its investigation.