Pay TV Subscribers Call for Pay Per View Technology

Pay TV subscribers in Nigeria have appealed to the relevant regulatory bodies in the nation’s broadcast industry to compel Pay TV operators in the country to introduce the Pay As You View option to enable them get services commensurate with what they pay, according to Tribune Business.

A survey carried out among a cross- section of subscribers in the country revealed that while a negligible few still prefer the present arrangement of a monthly subscription, majority of the subscribers see the Pay As You View option as the best for them in a country, with a huge infrastructure gap like Nigeria.

For instance, the issue of erratic power supply and the viewing challenge usually associated with bad weather, they argued, had made the Pay As You View option imperative.

The Pay TV option enables the subscriber to pay for the exact number of hours such subscribers spend watching a programme on a Pay Tv channel.

A subscriber with one of the oldest Pay TV platforms in the country, Felix Ayedun, believes the Pay As You View (PAYV) option remains the best option for subscribers in this part of the globe.

“What I see in the present arrangement is that, it is not mutually beneficial. It is an arrangement that benefits only the service providers and not the service consumers.

“Otherwise, how do you explain a situation where you have to pay for a service you never really enjoy? Sometimes you do not view these things for a couple of days, but once your subscription is on, you are paying. Why not toe the telecoms line? Before, telecoms services used to be post paid and when the reforms in that sector took place, some of the operators ganged up to insist on payment per minute, even when it was apparent that sometimes the talk time was not even half of a minute. It only took competition to break the gang up against subscribers then,” he argued.

Felix believes until the nation’s broadcast industry is fully liberalised and investors are encouraged, such kind of exploitation would not be put to a halt.

For London-based Leye, who has been having a running battle with his Pay TV service provider, if introduced, the PAYV option would further drive customer traffic to that industry.

He argued that a lot of Nigerians, especially those based outside the country, shied away from subscribing to Pay TV offerings since they believed they would not get services commensurate to what they were paying as subscriptions.

“For instance, if you are sure you can always continue your viewing from where you stopped the last time you were in Nigeria, you would want to subscribe, even if you are not based in Nigeria,” he agued.

However, Rahmon Olopade’s argument for preferring the Pay TV option is slightly different. He is also one of the subscribers to the oldest Pay TV platform in the country. But, since he relocated to a new area, he no longer enjoys the luxury of public power supply. He generates his own power and only uses this at night for just a few hours.

“I have temporarily suspended my subscription, not because I no longer enjoy the services, but because I consider it a huge waste of resources to subscribe to a service that you would only be able to enjoy for a few hours in a day,” he argued.

Olopade believes all these would have been taken care of if the Pay TV option had been available.

Curiously, subscribers clamouring for this payment option will have to wait a little bit longer as the Tribune Business checks with some of these Pay TV service providers revealed that plans to introduce such payment option are not  in the offing  yet.

“No such plans yet. The clamour has been on for a long time, but I don’t think the industry is ripe for that yet,” replied a staff of one of the Pay TV service providers who would not want his name in print.

While giving reasons it should not be introduced in the country yet, another staff in the corporate affairs department of foremost Pay TV service providers in the country argued that the introduction of the PAYV option might not necessarily translate to cheaper rates.

“For instance, sometimes they pay as much as $50 to watch very important tournaments such as title fights in countries where subscribers enjoy such options. And to think that this is even more than what some subscribers here pay for a month is another thing entirely,” he stated.