Estimating the decline of DStv Premium

Jan

Jan

Who's the Boss?
Staff member
Joined
May 24, 2010
Messages
14,039
Reaction score
12,061
Location
The Rabbit Hole
DStv Premium exodus

MultiChoice has lost between about 671,000 and 1.6 million Premium subscribers in the past eight and a half years.

Subscriptions to DStv's top-tier package have declined since March 2015, when customers peaked at 2.35 million across all the company's markets.
 
What makes that number even more shocking is factoring how many of those 773K premium accounts are discounted staff benefits.

Not only do they get a huge discount, but can extend this benefit to multiple family and friends. With 27K staff, and many thousands more in non-Naspers companies where they have an investment, that is a lot of accounts.

It would not surprise me if at least 10% is Naspers discounted accounts. At 55% discount, DStv Premium is not bad. That non-revenue generating slice of the pie is just going to continue to grow.
 
1.6 million subscribers x R900 monthly = one billion four hundred forty million lost.

Nochoice when you raped your clients you thought they would stay loyal.
With the amount of ads, repeats and terrible out dated shows that can only be watched when you say so,
Your service is not worth more than R180 per month.
 
Tantric Smurf said:
What makes that number even more shocking is factoring how many of those 773K premium accounts are discounted staff benefits.

Not only do they get a huge discount, but can extend this benefit to multiple family and friends. With 27K staff, and many thousands more in non-Naspers companies where they have an investment, that is a lot of accounts.

It would not surprise me if at least 10% is Naspers discounted accounts. At 55% discount, DStv Premium is not bad. That non-revenue generating slice of the pie is just going to continue to grow.
Click to expand...
Having worked at an ex Naspers company, the discount is only offered to Multichoice, DSTV, Supersport employees plus 3 additional friends and family.
Not even contractors on-site get the discount. I did have free internet at least :), also not sure where you got 27k staff? Probably 7k tops
 
TV with Thinus: Angry singer Steve Hofmeyr films how he cancels his MultiChoice account, rips DStv dish off the roof and workers showing him to keep driving over his DStv decoder as
 
Lupus said:
Having worked at an ex Naspers company, the discount is only offered to Multichoice, DSTV, Supersport employees plus 3 additional friends and family.
Not even contractors on-site get the discount. I did have free internet at least :)
Click to expand...

Having worked for a company that had a Naspers investment but was not owned by them, I can assure you they give that benefit to a lot more people than they claim.

That company was over 500 staff who qualified for the benefit.
 
Tantric Smurf said:
Having worked for a company that had a Naspers investment but was not owned by them, I can assure you they give that benefit to a lot more people than they claim.

That company was over 500 staff who qualified for the benefit.
Click to expand...
Hmmm that's surprising and I feel cheated now.
 
Historically, South Africans dump DStv in hard times, and times are harder now than ever and it's going to be like this for a while. Add to that that streaming kicks satellite TV's ass. It's not a good time to be a premium satellite TV operator.

I think we are doomed to watch MultiChoice slowly whither away over the next couple decades...
 
Jan said:
DStv Premium exodus

MultiChoice has lost between about 671,000 and 1.6 million Premium subscribers in the past eight and a half years.

Subscriptions to DStv's top-tier package have declined since March 2015, when customers peaked at 2.35 million across all the company's markets.
Click to expand...
No wonder the huge drop. We have 6 decoder on ultra plus at our business. The subscription has gone up by 60% since October last year (23). We were told it was because of the rugby world cup and the annual increase. We paid R72k per year in 23/24 and R116k in 24/25. The only content worth watching is sport and the Chasing the Sun series.
 
CwJ#123 said:
No wonder the huge drop. We have 6 decoder on ultra plus at our business. The subscription has gone up by 60% since October last year (23). We were told it was because of the rugby world cup and the annual increase. We paid R72k per year in 23/24 and R116k in 24/25. The only content worth watching is sport and the Chasing the Sun series.
Click to expand...
Man that's a lot of money to watch sport....
 
Agreed. Way too many repeats, especially Homestead Rescue. I'm only on premium for the sport. 80 % of the other channels hold no interest for me at all. Still, you have to pay for what you don't want, which sucks.
This will never happen but it would be great if you could choose what channels you want to watch and pay accordingly. Sadly apart from the sport which is generally brilliant, there is no comparison to Netflix etc.
 
DStv could have turned their fortunes around with affordable streaming packages.

They're taking the pi** with pricing like this:

Screenshot-2024-05-28-at-19-32-18.jpg
 
RedViking said:
Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
Click to expand...

Pretty insane when Supersport is the only decent thing about DStv and it’s only two simultaneous streams.

Whereas for $6 a month I can run 4+ F1 TV streams to show the main feed, 2x driver cams and the circuit map with live positions. And with better commentary than David Croft on Sky.

I’d take out a DStv sub to watch the golf and squash, but not at that price.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter