09 Mar 2015

Multichoice Botswana, the sole provider of digital satellite television, has once again increased its subscriptions amid a swelling ground of grumbling customers.

The company’s general manager, Mr Billy Sekgororoane, however said operational costs force them to hike the subscriptions annually. Some customers, however, remained resolute that Multichoice was ripping them off. Aletta Madondo said it was unfair to hike prices when everything else had remained stagnant.

“Even fuel prices have just recently been reduced so I wonder what informs them to increase theirs. We are being cheated because apart from the free Botswana television, there is nothing else one can watch,” she said. Dineo Keatshaba of Metsimotlhabe said it could be better if Multichoice offered a pay per view service.

“Right now there are a lot of channels that I never watch but I pay for them because they have been grouped with the ones I like. Why don’t they allow me to pay for only the ones I want as they do in other countries?” Ms Keatshaba asked rhetorically.

In the new prices, a top notch bouquet with all channels ups from P550 per month to P610 while the lowest moving from P90 to P105. Mr Sekgororoane said they incurrred huge costs such as satellite capacity cost, which in technical terms is called transponder fees.

“On satellite we basically lease space that we will use to broadcast because we do not own the satellite. So fundamentally we have satellite costs that we have to contend with on an annual basis,” he said.

Every channel they offered in their various bouquets, he said, had a fee attached to it except free to air broadcasters. He said the other element that sometimes hit them badly was devaluation of currencies against United States dollar.

He said their satellites costs were not payable in Rands or Pula but in United States dollars as the global currency although some of the channels such as Supersport and M-Net   are South African based. 

“When bidders such as SuperSport compete for the English Premier League for instance, they bid in United States dollars only and they transfer some of the costs to us because they have to make profit,” he said. ENDS