Can cable company's free Wi-Fi data package help win over TSTV faithfuls?

This is in partnership with Kenya’s premier telecommunications provider Telkom.

We can't help but wonder if something similar is done in Nigeria will help get DSTV some goodwill, retain existing customers and attract new ones.

MD Multichoice Kenya Eric Odipo says understanding customers’ needs brought about the offering of Kenyans value on both entertainment and Internet at an affordable cost.

“We listen to our customers to understand their changing needs and what matters most to them. We strive to improve our customers’ experience in different ways whenever and wherever they engage with us.

We understand that Internet has become a basic necessity for doing business and interacting with other people socially. That is why this partnership with Telkom is an important step towards improving our customer experience.”

This is an ongoing promo beginning October 2017 which is expected to help Multichoice and DSTV attract large numbers in customers and challenge the Pay-TV competition in Kenya that also has providers like Zuku, Startimes (StarSat) and most recently Kwese TV.

Multichoice Nigeria is currently facing some emerging threat in the PayTV business with the launch of TSTV Africa, a paraded Nigerian owned cable Direct-To-Home operator who are yet to commence selling to customers until November 1, 2017.

One of the selling points TSTV has marketed to Nigerians is the free data to come with every subscription tier, so seeing that Multichoice’s DSTV is wooing potential customers in Kenya with some free 30GB data, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to see this also apply to potential and existing Nigerian DSTV customers, even though it’s a promotional exercise.

DSTV in what most likely is an attempt to woo customers since TSTV came into the picture, ran a promo that saw them air premium Super Sports channels to DSTV compact and even far down to the lowest tier DSTV Access subscribers. That promo is being said to have ended on October 10.

Currently their sister company GOTV unveiled a GOMAX package (which goes for N3,800/month) that sees some new channels : SuperSport Select 4, Fox Entertainment, Sony Max and CBS Reality go up, all in an attempt to woo potential customers looking for alternatives like TSTV.

Perhaps we could see a new partnership emerge between Multichoice and one or two if not all of the telecoms operators in Nigeria to provide some free data, that may help persuade TSTV faithfuls to stick with DSTV.

A HD decoder plus one month subscription in Nigeria currently goes for N9,900, which is far above the N5000 amount TSTV is selling its decoder plus one month subscription and complementary data.

If we were to look past the decoder buying phase, TSTV as it stands would still have an edge for being a preferred choice for the average Nigerian given the other advertised features like the pay-as-you consume model and more economical value for watching premium football content.

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