Latest service provider in the nation’s Pay TV platform, TStv may have a lot to contend to remain not only in the service segment, but fight for market share beginning from day one.
Business Hilights recalls that the offerings of the company were officially unveiled in Abuja on Sunday, October 1, this year by the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
In his remarks, he announced three years tax holiday, saying TStv would totally redefine the pay per view platform and, by extension, the television industry, by making it possible for people in all segments of society to enjoy high quality entertainment.
However, investigations by our correspondents four days after the launch, show that the key rival, GOtv has already fired up promotional campaigns designed to retain subscribers and further deepen subscriber base, using ‘GO Gaga Confam’.
The promo introduced earlier September came with several goodies.
Four major enticing and captivating channels have been injected into the GOtv leading platforms including GOtv Plus, GOtv Value and GOtv Lite.
In an interview with one of the GOtv dealers in Festac Town, Lagos, he revealed that since the media hype for the launch of TStv, the company had been meeting with them, and introducing several new good things to grow its market share of Nigerian subscribers.
Giving insights on a running promo tagged: ‘GO GAGA Confam’ gaga
The dealer who pleaded anonymity said “Apart from the 4 new channels, the price for decoder has been slashed from N7.700 to N5,900 since last month and the highest monthly plan remains N1,900, N1,250 and N400 as no TStv plan is less than N2,000”.
“Again the beauties of the four new channels include the inclusion of Premier League live matches, Champions league matches, La Liga and WWE (Wrestling).
According to him, the four new channels include Sony Max, Fox, CBS Reality and SS Select 4.
“From what am observing, GOtv is ready to add more choice channels from its flagship, the DStv, depending on how the market dynamics are going following the entrance of TStv.
The dealer also revealed that TStv can only drag market share with GOtv and not the mainstream DStv for now because of the grounds already covered by DStv.
There is also free airtime for GOtv subscribers who are able to remain connected for three straight months.
Analysts say the Nigerian Pay TV market is very small but deadly in nature for new arrivals that did not have a strong background in fighting for market share.
This is based on the fact that since the opening up of Pay TV platform in Nigeria by South African MultiChoice using DStv several years ago, many other rivals that entered the free market either exited unceremoniously or are struggling to stand segment competition.
When HItv came on board, Nigerians who are looking for some levels of relief from service flexibility wanted to celebrate but the company’s poor knowledge of the terrain and bogus cost control facilitated its early collapse.
Some years after, several other Pay TVs entered the market only to run away after observing that the lion king has several demarketing strategy to amass market share.
Then came StarTimes which rode on the back of the government’s owned Nigerian television Authority (NTA).
After the initial euphoria spread across areas of coverage, expansion became a big issue, thus forcing the Chinese investors to a tight corner of only few states after 10 years of launch.
In Nigeria, the quality of European sports channel any Pay TV is showing clearly determines how it is going to control the market share because Nigerians are mainly football lovers.
However, though TStv has assured prospective subscribers that it will march others with superlative sports channels, analysts are skeptical that the lion king may be plotting a strategy that may end up boxing to a tight corner; the first gainer of the tax free scheme of the federal government in the industry.
However, the critical subscription platform many Nigerians are looking for which is Pay-Per-View seems to be technically lacking in TStv as what obtains in the new company offering is a Pay As You Go which can only allow subscribers a limited option to pause their subscription when not in use for not more than seven days in a month.
Business Hilights gathered that TStv’s initial subscription cost, including a decoder, a dish and a remote control, is N5,000.
Another added advantage coming with the subscription is that after buying the decoder, subscribers will get up to 20GB of data as bonus, while subsequent full monthly subscription through e-payment platform will come with 10GB of data.
