There are indications that newly launched Pay TV group; Telcomm Satellite TV (TStv) may have started first tranche of market share warfare.
The platform was unveiled by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed on Sunday, October 1st in Abuja and announced three year tax holiday for the company as a way of support for seamless takeoff and consolidation.
However, out of fears of competitors’ buying up the decoders for dumping purpose so as to disrupt the popularity, the managing director, Mr. Bright Echefu explained in an exclusive interview that the delay in releasing the decoders to the public was to ensure that dealers were properly scrutinized so that the decoders do not fall into the wrong hands.
In his words; “We don’t want a situation where someone would pick our decoders and dump them somewhere. That is why we are very careful because of competition”.
According to him, even though its landing cost is N28,000, each decoder would be sold to Nigerians at a subsidized rate of N5,000.
Continuing, he said “We have received well over 6,000 applications and it has been overwhelming processing these people; but so far, we have been able to accredit more than 748 dealers and we have received applications from more than 3,000 of them.
“That is why we have not commercialized our services even though we are the ones losing because we have enough decoders to cover the whole of Nigeria.
“But it will be unfair with all the money put in for us to give decoders out and those decoders don’t get to the end users,” TStv boss averred.
Continuing, Echefu said that measures had been put in place to ensure its sustainability in terms of services, pledging that the organisation would be envied by many Nigerians in the next ten years.
He disclosed that the organisation currently had a total of 250 staff on direct employment, while it expects to that indirect employment would hit 10,000 at take off.
He revealed that TSTV has improved on its transmission facilities to overcome weather challenges while expressing happiness over the acceptance by Nigerians.
He praised the Federal Government for the three years tax relief granted to the company to encourage more investors to come to Nigeria.
He said that the company would consolidate on the new tax policy to grow its business in the country and recoup its investment.
On the alleged copyright infringement on two international content providers, Turner Broadcasting System and beIN sports, Echefu said the company entered into partnership agreement with every concerned organisation.
Echefu also added that TSTV will air CNN and beIN sport channels.
Business Hilights recalls that though the Telcomm Satellite TV (TStv) unveiled its operations in Abuja on October1, 2017, commercial operations nationwide will begin commercial operation on Nov. 1.
Explaining the takeoff strategy, Managing Director of the company, Mr. Bright Echefu, said TStv would launch its services with about one million decoders nationwide, adding that at least 5,000 decoders TSTV would be released to the public next week for free.
Though he did not give details on how the free decoders will be accessed, Echefu averred that the first set of decoders with one month free subscription to test run its services.
According to TStv boss, “Commercialization of our decoders will resume officially on Nov. 1 and by that time, every part of Nigeria would have TStv decoders for people to buy”.
“We are releasing about one million which can go round and our target for the first quarter is one million units.
“In every quarter we will bring one million units and we are targeting four million units within the next one year.
“I can tell you categorically that some decoders will be released next week for Nigerians to test and we are going to cover the 36 states of the federation.
“These decoders are going to be free and its close to 5,000 units to test and that will last for two weeks,’’ he said.
