DStv price increase explained

MultiChoice yesterday informed their subscribers that their DStv subscription fees will increase from 1 April 2011.

The increases are applicable to DStv Premium, DStv Compact and DStv Select bouquets with annual price increases ranging between 5% and 6%.

The rates for DStv Lite (R99), PVR access (R65.00), DStv Mobile (R36.00), DStv North and South Indian, PVR add on, DStv Lite, DCC, ZEE TV and DStv Portuguesa remains unchanged.

Many consumers are not impressed. DStv forum users’ feedback included: “This is almost the ONLY process in MultiChoice we can all rely on working properly every year!” and “Can’t understand how the income pool (customers) gets larger and larger every year, surely the price should come DOWN as the subscriber base increases?”

MyBroadband forum members also criticized the price increase with comments such as: “This is getting unacceptable now” and “It matches their logo phrase “So much more”. I can’t wait for the excuse for increasing the fees.”

MultiChoice explains

MultiChoice spokesperson Marietjie Groenewald explains that the latest price adjustment is due to an increase in the cost of doing business.

“This [price increase] is to enable us to continue to provide the same quality of service into the future. The DStv subscription fees are reviewed every year when the business plan is prepared. The decision to increase or not is determined once the business planning process is completed,” said Groenewald.

Groenewald pointed out that over the past year MultiChoice added 8 channels to the DStv platform and introduced a new lower-price bouquet, DStv Lite. These channels are Discovery Channel in HD, Mzansi Magic, SONY MAX, Afromusic, M-Net Movies 1 HD, Food Network, Kidsco and SuperSport HD2.

“We also introduced the OnDemand service for our Premium subscribers, and launched our DStv Mobile service, both of which are offered free of charge to DStv Premium subscribers,” said Groenewald. “We will continue to look for opportunities to add more value.”

Many consumers wondered why MultiChoice would increase prices when facing competition from TopTV. Groenewald pointed out that “MultiChoice incurs increasing costs regardless of whether there is direct competition or not.”

The following table provides an overview of the price increases of MultiChoice’s DStv service over the last five years.

DStv price increase explained << comments and views

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