By Kuvee Kangueehi
WINDHOEK
A number of MultiChoice Namibia subscribers are planning to start subscribing to MultiChoice South Africa following the decision to screen locally only 20 percent of English Premier League (EPL) matches.
Some of Namibian viewers who have been affected are now contacting relatives and friends in South Africa to subscribe for them in that country.
South African viewers were not affected as SuperSport, on which MultiChoice relies for sports content, put in two separate bids for the rights to screen the matches.
One bid was for the rights to screen EPL is South Africa, and the other for the “rest of Africa”. SuperSport ended up securing the South African contract, but lost out on the other.
The subscription fee for this bouquet is N$228 a month, whereas the Premium Bouquet costs N$439 a month. The EPL matches were screened as part of the Premium Bouquet.
A customer agent at MultiChoice Namibia who spoke on condition of anonymity said it is not illegal for Namibians to subscribe to MultiChoice South Africa.
The agent said subscribers need to buy a new smart card though.
The agent said a subscriber would also need to make arrangements for the payments to be done in South Africa and all enquiries would need to be done at the South African call centre.
The agent said the practice was not new as many subscribers living in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia are subscribers to MultiChoice Namibia.
The agent however refused to divulge the number of subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions at the Namibia office but noted that a few are still expressing their dissatisfaction.
The agent further said there were incidents where male viewers disconnected the service only for female viewers in the same household to request reconnection a few hours later.
“While the men appear to be extremely disappointed by the cut in football matches, the women are not prepared to lose out on their favourite programmes such as Generations and Big Brother.”
The Namibian newspaper yesterday reported that the General Manager of MultiChoice Namibia Kobus Bezuidenhout confirmed that about 50 football fans cancelled their DStv subscriptions on Saturday
Bezuidenhout said this was not a substantial number of subscribers and would not necessarily have a major impact on company revenue and operations.
Namibian football fans have been extremely upset about the reduced number of EPL matches on offer on DStv, a satellite pay-TV service offered by MultiChoice Namibia.