Indications have emerged revealing that Nigerian Pay TV subscribers may be in for a better times ahead from October as new giant, Telcom Satellite TV (TStv) is about to enter the market segment with a rare tactics.
Just like what Globacom did, by wrestling away a sizable chunk of the market share from MTN and Econet Wireless, using Per-Second-Billing (PSB) which was hitherto labeled undoable, TStv is entering the currently monopolistic market from October 1, with a bang!, tagged “Pay-As-You-Consume” plan.
Details made available to Business Hilights indicated that TStv is partnering with Europe-based television station, ABS Global, to launch a Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite TV from October 1, 2017, with a message centered on ‘Buy Naija and Grow the Naira’ and pay as you use (PAYU) subscription plan.
According to the managing director of TSTV, Bright Echefu, “When fully launched, the pay TV satellite would cover all sub-Saharan African countries and would provide over 200 TV channels to their audience”.
Explaining more during a recent multi-transponder agreement signing ceremony, Echefu averred that TStv services would offer viewers the experience of HD and SD video, internet services, broadband, TV and radio at a very affordable rate.
In his words; “What makes the project unique is that it would start with 100 channels of local, regional and international in Yoruba, Igbo Hausa, Ghanaian, Sierra Leonean, and Liberian Languages among others. It would also provide news, entertainment, education content”.
“TSTV has the right content and premium product to satisfy the growing demand of Nigeria. “It would assist ABS take Nollywood and Sport to great height. Their sport channels are the bomb! EPL, La liga and Champion League is amazing!”
On the technology in display, Echefu said that the station is based on the HBB TV tech, which is a combination of satellite and internet service for TV service.
“TSTv will run on 4.5g network every subscriber will get 20G of data for N3,000 monthly, the data can also be used for video calls conferences with camera and wifi. The TSTV decoder will have 50GB hard disk to record TV programs and a pause/play function.
“With TSTV, you don’t need to pay subscription monthly or periodically. You pay as you consume.
“It is the first Nigerian TV to launch a Pay-as-you-use so you can pause your subscription whenever you are traveling. It is just N5000 for the decoder and dish and subscription prices ranges from N200, N500, N1000, N1500 and N3000 respectively”.
Explaining further, the core investors noted that “TStv Africa aims to cover the 36 States in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), but will launch first in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Owerri and Kano”.
“TSTv shows Live Sports like Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Europa League and so much more. Some Sport Channels on TSTV Africa are bein Sport 1-10, Fox Sport HD, and Ts Sports.
Analysts are upbeat that having studied what lead to the sudden death of HItv few years ago, TStv will not succumb to deadly anti-market competition that killed HItv.
