What MultiChoice is doing about declining DStv Premium subscriber numbers

JustAsk said:
Ask your tv show producers to stop making 40 min series episodes will be a start.


That's a dishonest way of looking at it. Paytv all over have a cap on paid ads income because they are...pay tv. To fill that 20 minutes in the hour, they need to fill it with their own inhouse crap.

Also, ads are bought by timeslot, so a paid ad running all the time is just business. I can remember when Ariel was introduced, the ads ran all day, every day on all channels, paid and free tv. Now everybody uses Ariel, even the poor.

Conclusion: It pays to annoy some with ads.
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Running time

In the United States, dramas produced for hour-long time slots typically are 39 to 42 minutes in length (excluding advertisements), while sitcoms produced for 30-minute time slots typically are 18 to 21 minutes long. There are exceptions as subscription-based TV channels (such as HBO, Starz, Cinemax, and Showtime) have episodes with 45 to 48 minutes of program, similar to Britain.

In Britain dramas run from about 45 to 48 minutes, with 57 to 59 minutes on BBC1. Sitcoms vary greatly and are between 22 and 27 minutes generally and 27 to 29 minutes on BBC1. The longer duration on the national television channels (BBC1 and BBC2) is due to the lack of advertising, requiring time only for bridging commentary and trailers in each program slot.

In France most television shows (whether dramas, game shows or documentaries) have a duration of 52 minutes. This is the same on nearly all French networks (TF1, France 2, France 5, M6, Canal+, etc.).[24]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_show#Running_time

Sounds like shows are specifically made less than an hour (or 30 minutes) to accommodate ads.
 
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Geoff.D said:
Oh yes, they did that to many of us. The official excuse was programming error. Took me a month to get my money back. The answer is NOT to just make the decoder inactive but to go to MC direct not an agency and get the decoder completely removed off your account and scrapped.
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Im waiting for the 3rd decline on the charge reversal... If that happens then theh lose me as a customer for ever... What kind of facked up system just magically reactivates things that have been deaxtive for over 2 years.
 
Geoff.D said:
My advice is go into DSTV offices direct . in your case a copy of the police theft report or case number should help. Yes it is a pain but it is the only way to get that decoder off your name and scrapped. It will also sort out whomever the thief sold the decoder to .... Some sort of Karma.
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If that is the only option to get this cock. Up fixed.. Then they have lost me as a. Customer... I've done 25 minutes on the phone and that is the limit of my acceptance of fixing their fsck up... Beyond this will either be a canceled account or I will bill them for my time
 
ToxicBunny said:
If that is the only option to get this cock. Up fixed.. Then they have lost me as a. Customer... I've done 25 minutes on the phone and that is the limit of my acceptance of fixing their fsck up... Beyond this will either be a canceled account or I will bill them for my time
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Yes it is extremely irritating. It comes from I believe, the "rule" that applies when you switch services to a "holiday" decoder. The maximum suspension is 1 month, after which service is "automatically" switched back to your home decoder. Anyway that is the BS O was told. Their systems seem to "automatically" decide that a decoder that is inactive is your home decoder, and then they switch services on that decoder on again. NONE of it makes any sense.

MCs systems are full of these strange anomalies and no one seems to be doing anything about it. For those of us that were with them from the beginning, are completely disillusioned now. MC have lost their innovative edge and are increasingly just following the herd.
 
EADC said:
How many subscribers?
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Subscribers will multiply once the prices drop. So, would you have twice as many subscribers for half the price or keep half as many subscribers for twice the price?
 
Sl8er said:
Running time



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_show#Running_time

Sounds like shows are specifically made less than an hour (or 30 minutes) to accommodate ads.
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France 2, France 3 (which was forgotten) and France 5 being public channels have no advertising during prime time, hence the 52min is not linked to advertising.

It's most likely and old standard set at the time when all channels were public and that became the norm.
 
JustAsk said:
Ask your tv show producers to stop making 40 min series episodes will be a start.


That's a dishonest way of looking at it. Paytv all over have a cap on paid ads income because they are...pay tv. To fill that 20 minutes in the hour, they need to fill it with their own inhouse crap.

Also, ads are bought by timeslot, so a paid ad running all the time is just business. I can remember when Ariel was introduced, the ads ran all day, every day on all channels, paid and free tv. Now everybody uses Ariel, even the poor.

Conclusion: It pays to annoy some with ads.
Click to expand...

Ariel? Thought that was from the movie frozen? What is Ariel?
 
Geoff.D said:
Yes it is extremely irritating. It comes from I believe, the "rule" that applies when you switch services to a "holiday" decoder. The maximum suspension is 1 month, after which service is "automatically" switched back to your home decoder. Anyway that is the BS O was told. Their systems seem to "automatically" decide that a decoder that is inactive is your home decoder, and then they switch services on that decoder on again. NONE of it makes any sense.

MCs systems are full of these strange anomalies and no one seems to be doing anything about it. For those of us that were with them from the beginning, are completely disillusioned now. MC have lost their innovative edge and are increasingly just following the herd.
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In my case it was a set of decoders that hadn't been active for over 2 years... just miraculously got automatically reactivated...

Would love to see what rule this fell under.
 
ToxicBunny said:
In my case it was a set of decoders that hadn't been active for over 2 years... just miraculously got automatically reactivated...

Would love to see what rule this fell under.
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A XV combination is considered to be one account. So it says what MC believes is your home account. It is all BS and bad processes whatever the number of devices involved. And it is unacceptable.
The only reason I am still a reluctant subscriber is because I can't get my credit refunded by MC. When that is up I am gone. On Easyview for more than 5 years already.
 
Sl8er said:
Sounds like shows are specifically made less than an hour (or 30 minutes) to accommodate ads.
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Pay tv mostly buy network tv produced series from the States, you know that 24 eps, 10 season never ending procedural crap. These shows are made specify to draw an audience large enough to sell ads to. The business of network tv is not tv but selling ads.

Every year the series running time gets shorter to create more space for more ads. Pay tv in other countries needs to fill this time with something. Since they can't use all this time for paid ads, they have to fill some of it with their own inhouse ads or other filler programming.

If all those shows were to change to, let's say 50 minute running time, it will not change the ad income of pay tv, you will just see less inhouse ads.
 
This is an interesting trend from overseas:
https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/-streaming-tv-is-getting-pricier-by-the-/f-56e6c637be/cultofmac.com

If you think about it, the production cost of TV is not changing, only the delivery model has. Suppose when you have tremendous amounts of churn from one platform to another, the cost will eventually follow as the traditional platforms shrink and absorb less of the upfront production costs.

Would be interesting to compare the delivery model cost of cable/satellite vs an internet stream. That is the only portion that will change and influence the overall delivery cost to consumer.
 
Do families still do this? The image of the Simpson family sitting on the couch, remote in Homer`s hand... flipping channels?

I used to have DSTV... I remember one of the channels had Top Gear on repeat... they would go through all 1000 seasons and then start over again, Discovery did the same with Mythbusters,

Went on holiday recently to a place that has dstv, it seems to have gotten worse though.... they now show a show about people bidding on stuff in shipping containers, followed by a different show about people bidding on stuff in shipping containers in a different country, switched to the History channel and saw a show about slightly classier people bidding of stuff in storage garages.
Those were usually the only channels worth skimming over.
 
I cancelled my DSTV about 4 years back. Never looked back. Not even the next day after work becauce I was playing sports with my children outside. Spending time is much better than DSTV. **** them they will not control me!
 
Urist said:
Do families still do this? The image of the Simpson family sitting on the couch, remote in Homer`s hand... flipping channels?

I used to have DSTV... I remember one of the channels had Top Gear on repeat... they would go through all 1000 seasons and then start over again, Discovery did the same with Mythbusters,

Went on holiday recently to a place that has dstv, it seems to have gotten worse though.... they now show a show about people bidding on stuff in shipping containers, followed by a different show about people bidding on stuff in shipping containers in a different country, switched to the History channel and saw a show about slightly classier people bidding of stuff in storage garages.
Those were usually the only channels worth skimming over.
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History Channel, TLC and the likes are no longer the same channels even overseas they are just Pawnstars, ice-road truckers and for some reason storage wars, it's like the British fascination with antiques and gardening, the Americans seem to like people bidding on things.
 
Q: What MultiChoice is doing about declining DStv Premium subscriber numbers

A: Just sent me an invoice for R500+ to watch repeat broadcasts 24x7 of C grade movies noones ever heard of or Jerry Springer rereleases.

Time to abandon ship.
 
I gave up on DSTV 3years ago because of ridiculous cost. Not to stream o anything else, it's pointless on ADSL. Instead we have more family time, our TV`s have not been switched on in all this time and I don't regret it for a minute.
 
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