{"id":45029,"date":"2012-03-07T11:45:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T09:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=45029"},"modified":"2012-03-07T11:47:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T09:47:16","slug":"toptv-and-dstv-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/45029-toptv-and-dstv-battle.html","title":{"rendered":"TopTV and DStv battle?"},"content":{"rendered":"

TopTV<\/a> acting CEO Eddie Mbalo<\/a> has said that the behaviour of MultiChoice<\/a>\/DStv<\/a> is anti-competitive, and that the Competition Commission and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)<\/a> should look into the behaviour of DStv.<\/p>\n

In an interview on Maggs on Media on eTV<\/a>, Mbalo said that it is not fair that DStv is using their dominance in the market to crush a new player like TopTV.<\/p>\n

This, Mbalo said, is particularly unfair considering that government gave MultiChoice a two decade head-start to establish itself in the market.<\/p>\n

As an example Mbalo said that DStv launched a R99 package, which competes directly against TopTV’s entry level service, at exactly the same time as TopTV’s entrance into the market.<\/p>\n

Mbalo said that they are currently looking at MultiChoice’s acquisition strategies (which includes sports and general content acquisitions), and may act on the legal feedback they receive.<\/p>\n

Mbalo said that they are currently not in discussion with the regulator or Competition Commission, adding that their focus is on customer acquisition.<\/p>\n

TopTV currently has around 320,000 decoders in the market, but with only 140,000 to 150,000 paying subscribers. DStv, in comparison, has close to 4 million subscribers in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/a>

Eddie Mbalo<\/p><\/div>\n

MultiChoice responds<\/strong><\/p>\n

MultiChoice said that they did not act anti-competitively in the past and is also not acting anti-competitively in their content acquisition strategies.<\/p>\n

“As previously indicated, MultiChoice embraces competition and we are aware that competition will also come from non-traditional sources such as the internet. We believe competition will attract investment into the broadcasting industry and the South African economy in general,” said MultiChoice.<\/p>\n

“Competition will also stimulate the growth of the pay television market, local production industry and ensure that consumers are provided with choice and more diversity of content.”<\/p>\n

“Our focus is to continually enhance viewer\u2019s experience and we are always looking at opportunities to improve our overall offering by introducing innovative services and compelling content,” MultiChoice concluded.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

DStv price increase<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DStv and TopTV versus Consumer Commission<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DStv Lite versus TopTV R99 package<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TopTV CEO says that MultiChoice (and hence DStv) is acting anti-competitive, and that they may take the matter further<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,8533,35,475,87],"class_list":["post-45029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-eddie-mbalo","tag-headline","tag-multichoice","tag-toptv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45031,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45029\/revisions\/45031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}