DStv Unveils Pocket Friendly Bouquet, Adjusts Fees

MultiChoice, Nigeria’s has introduced a new bouquet, DStv Access, in response to the yearnings of aspiring DStv lovers to have access to high quality content.
Priced at an all-time low monthly subscription rate of N1, 500, DStv Access which cuts across the major entertainment genres, will contain 27 world-class channels at inception, which will be increased to 34 before December this year.
According to Joseph Hundah, managing director, MultiChoice Nigeria, “the bouquet line-up will cut across entertainment and movies, lifestyle, sports, documentary, children, music, religion, news and current affairs, among others.”
He said that the introduction of DStv Access is in keeping with the company’s consumer-centric philosophy to make DStv available to a greater number of people in the country. “We carried out extensive research and focus group discussions and discovered that a good number of Nigerians wish to have access to world-class information and television programming but these potential subscribers are hindered by their purchasing power. We decided to meet the consumers’ aspiration by creating yet another bouquet to further lower the entry barrier without taking away the value-added advantage that DStv is synonymous with.”
Hundah also announced a slight increase in the subscription fees for DStv Compact and DStv Premium. From September 01, the new fees will be N4, 500 from N4, 300 for the Compact, and N9, 500 from N9, 000 for the Premium, respectively. DStv Family, however, remains at N2, 500 monthly.
Explaining the rationale behind the increase in subscription fees, he said the prevailing operating environment in Nigeria, with attendant rising cost of providing service, necessitated the slight adjustment. “In the last four years, we have had to contend with the impact of fluctuation in the exchange rate, double digit inflation and rising cost of overheads. Within the same period, we have increased the number of channels on our bouquets by at least ten without an accompanying increase in subscription fees. We have also discounted the cost of hardware considerably to meet the needs of many new subscribers.” 
The MultiChoice boss said the company is continuously striving to offer value for money, and that is why there are many bouquets available on DStv. “With the impending launch of our High Definition Personal Video Recorder (PVR) decoder and system upgrade in the last quarter of the year, we expect hundreds of thousands of Nigerians to enjoy high quality, entertaining as well as educative programmes. We are also looking at ways of reducing the cost of these programmes. The benefits of these measures we are taking will always be passed on to our subscribers,” he said.   
He said the slight adjustments in subscription fees will not affect the monthly access charges for the PVR and Dual View decoders, urging subscribers who wish to beat the price re-alignment to consider the option of paying upfront. “Subscribers who make their payments before the end of August will not be affected by the new price regime. Also, subscribers have the option of paying for eleven months in advance and they will watch for twelve months since they are entitled to one month free subscription should they choose to pay for eleven months in advance.”