Multichoice which was the first to migrate onto the T2 ahead of the market, has built 13 transmitter sites across the country, including one free-to-air (FTA) uplink transmitter site, which has enabled it to roll out its local digital terrestrial television (DTT), Gotv, which could be received country with only a set-to-box device (DTV box) and an antenna.

The General Manager of the company, Mr Cecil Sunkwa-Mills, said during an interaction with some members of the Network of Communications Reporters (NCA) in Accra that the company had written proposals to the authorities over how to leverage the infrastructure in the national interest and was hoping that it would yield positive outcomes.

Multichouce Ghana, the first paid television in the country broadcasting in partnership with M-Net, a South Africa digital television, has since 2014 launched a second DTT service, Gotv, in addition to its DStv broadcasts.

Price adjustments

The Corporate and Public Relations Manager at Multichoice Ghana, Nii Amah Dagadu, said listening to its customers, the company had adjusted its pricing, with price reductions even though it now offered more channels and value on each bouquet.

The English Premier League (EPL), one of the selling points of DStv, used to be on its premium bouquet, but it has brought it also onto the next lower bouquet, the Compact Plus, although it has alsoslashed the price for the bouquet.

Multichoice has also added a lot more paid channels to the various bouquets, while reducing the prices on all four bouquets - family, compact, compact plus and premium.

“Since February this year, we have improved content on some of our much lower bouquets and also reduced prices a few days ago. In April, which is the beginning of our financial year, prices would normally have gone up, but we froze prices, even though we had improved the content. All these are the phase one of our value strategy which we call ‘business unusual,” Ni Amah stated.

“In spite of these price reductions and content improvements it is business unusual because for a while we’ve been accused of being an expensive product, but now our pricing looks very attractive.

“All this is fueled from the fact that customers have complained, as economic conditions across Africa have worsened. We’ve seen foreign exchange parity rising, with local currencies depreciating that made it more expensive for them to continue to subscribe,” Mr Dagadu stated.

The Country Manager, Mr Cecil Sunkwa-Mills, added that the strategy evolved from a country-specific and Africa-wide market research which established a certain affordability band, saying “so it is important that we also place our products within that affordability band.”

He explained that some of the products such as the EPL were also getting so expensive by the day in terms of rights, but they had structured it to increase subscription volumes so as to cover the cost at which they secured the screening rights.

The local conditions have also contributed to DStv’s price adjustments. The cedi has been unstable over the last three years until last year when it remained relatively stable. But power has also been a challenge, besides the election jitters which disrupts business operations in Ghana.

Fighting piracy

Multichoice has been saddled with plethora of piracy in the market in different forms, including the installation of unapproved set-top-boxes (STBs) which broadcast DStv content free of charge.

Piracy is the unauthorised duplication of copyrighted content that is then sold at substantially lower prices in the market. It is also known as the stealing of intellectual property for selfish gain or interest.

Multichoice Ghana has for some years now set up an anti-piracy department which is working around the clock, with the collaboration of security agencies to clamp down on the illicit activities, which deny them of revenues to teh company, the nation in taxes and royalties and copyright fees to content creators.

These changes are not only a defining moment in our MultiChoice story, but also a defining moment in the African entertainment landscape and we are proud to be pushing as hard as we can to delight every television entertainment fan in Africa,” Mr Sunkwa-Mills said.

Messrs Sunkwa-Mills and Nii Amah made it clear that it was illegal to publicly screen DStv content in clubs, pubs, viewing centres and restaurants when they had not paid for the right to do so.

It was also illegal for a commercial subscriber to screen an event on a giant screen out of a specified premises without specific permission for public screening from content owners such as a World Cup match or big boxing bouts.

Multichoice, media collaboration

The management of DStv appealed for the support of the media, especially from members of NCR, to fight such illecit activities. They should also help with educating the public about the industry so as to ensure that content creators, the industry and the state received their due share of revenues.

The Dean of NCR, Mr Charles Benoni Okine, expressed appreciation to Multichoice Ghana for opening its doors to the media, as well as helping to apprise them of the sector.

Mr Okine bemoaned some of the constraints hitting the industry hard, such as the communication service tax (CST), which calculation he stressed, amounted to ‘charging tax on tax’.

Mr Okine called for its immediate review failing which the reporters’ network would carry out a massive advocacy to get it rectified.

The two organisations converged on the need to collaborate more on several fronts to promote the industry for national development.