One of the most unexciting yet expensive cable TV platforms in the world; MultiChoice Ghana, is appealing to its customers to accept its new charges for Dstv services.
The multinational firm, said increased operational cost, soaring inflation, taxes among others, warranted its decision to increase its prices.
MultiChoice Ghana, has not been innovative in its programming. Aside from football, which is even seasonal, its movies, documentaries among others, have continuously been repeated to the annoyance of customers.
In an era of Netflix, Showmax among others, it is not uncommon these days for customers to refuse to subscribe to the Dstv platform.
Some customers, had in the past resorted to subscribing to Nigeria’s Dstv bouquet, arguing that it is more exciting and cheaper than that of Ghana.
Surprisingly, MultiChoice Ghana, responded to this by deploying the police to arrest and prosecute both subscribers and those behind the Nigeria Dstv decoders.
Last week, Dstv has been trending on social media after MultiChoice Ghana announced a 19percent rise in its subscription charges effective February 15, 2023. It is the third or fourth of such increment in less than a year.
But Multichoice in a statement issued on February 3, 2023, explained that the last time it increased its tariff was in April 2022.
It added that inflation at the time was 23.6percent, but the figure has ballooned to over 54percent.
It noted that inflation, cedi depreciation and other economic conditions have pushed its cost of operations to worrying levels.
“As a business operating in Ghana, we appreciate the current difficult economic condition the country is facing and hence we understand your concerns. MultiChoice has considered various factors including the current economic pressures facing customers while considering its price adjustments”.
“Year on Year (non) inflation as at end of December 2022 is 54.1% versus the April 2022 number of 23.6%. The various adjustments we have announced are an average of 19% increase which is significantly below the current YoY inflation which has increased by 30.5 percentage points. It is important to also note that our subscription price build-up includes various taxes such as VAT-15%, NHIL-2.5%, GETFund Levy-2.5%, Covid levy-1% and Communication Service Tax-5%.”
“With all the above considerations, we have had to do an adjustment on average 19% yet significantly below what is required to cover the increase in our cost of operations with inflation currently at 54.1%.
With the above considerations, we have had to make an adjustment in our prices and continue to strive to see that the increase faced by our customers is as low as possible. Over the past 30 years, MultiChoice has worked tirelessly to ensure it provides an unrivalled bouquet of channels to watch and platforms to view them on for the entire family,” Multichoice assured in the statement.
