About 50 pull plug on DStv

MULTICHOICE Namibia General Manager Kobus Bezuidenhout yesterday confirmed that about 50 football fans cancelled their DStv subscriptions on Saturday.

This came after the company failed to secure the rights to screen most of the English Premier League (EPL) matches this season. Bezuidenhout said this was not a substantial number of subscribers and would not necessarily have a major impact on company’s revenue and operations.Namibian football fans have been extremely upset about the reduced number of EPL matches on offer on DStv, a satellite pay-TV service offered by MultiChoice Namibia.Some subscribers threatened to disconnect en masse in Windhoek on Saturday and said they hoped viewers countrywide would follow their example.SuperSport, the sport channels on which the EPL matches are shown on DStv, only managed to secure the rights to televise 20 per cent of the EPL matches for the 2007/2008 season.The rights to screen the remaining 80 per cent of matches were awarded to another pay-TV channel, Gateway Television (GTV).This left SuperSport with no choice, as they were only allocated 84 matches for the whole season according to the new rules of the EPL.A separate bid was made for the television rights in South Africa and football fans there will be able to watch more than 300 EPL matches this season.Bezuidenhout said the disconnections by some members of the public, who donned the colours of their favourite English teams on Saturday, were processed within 25 minutes.Bezuidenhout said people simply had to fill in a disconnection form and present their account number for the services to be stopped.”The were no letters required for this to be done, as people were saying earlier,” he said.He said some other people decided to downgrade to the Impact Bouquet, which offers fewer channels.The subscription fee for this bouquet is N$228 a month, whereas the Premium Bouquet costs N$439 a month.The EPL matches were screened as part of the Premium Bouquet.Another interesting development is that MultiChoice’s request to work in partnership with GTV – which holds the majority rights – was turned down.Bezuidenhout said GTV have applied to the Namibia Communications Commission (NCC) for a licence to start broadcasting in Namibia.Meanwhile, Windhoek lawyer Lucius Murorua, who is at the forefront of the protest against DStv, said there would be a meeting for dissatisfied football fans to look at the possibility of making the matches available to Namibians through GTV.He said GTV had proposed that they should find a big venue such as a stadium or a large restaurant where matches can be screened live.Muroruasaid his committee would discuss this option.MultiChoice’s Bezuidenhout reiterated that Namibian football fans can still enjoy matches from other leagues around the world.He said SuperSport has improved its football coverage apart from the EPL and now also offer the French, Spanish and Portuguese leagues, while fans also have access to football programmes offered by Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona.Bezuidenhout said this was not a substantial number of subscribers and would not necessarily have a major impact on company’s revenue and operations.Namibian football fans have been extremely upset about the reduced number of EPL matches on offer on DStv, a satellite pay-TV service offered by MultiChoice Namibia.Some subscribers threatened to disconnect en masse in Windhoek on Saturday and said they hoped viewers countrywide would follow their example.SuperSport, the sport channels on which the EPL matches are shown on DStv, only managed to secure the rights to televise 20 per cent of the EPL matches for the 2007/2008 season.The rights to screen the remaining 80 per cent of matches were awarded to another pay-TV channel, Gateway Television (GTV).This left SuperSport with no choice, as they were only allocated 84 matches for the whole season according to the new rules of the EPL.A separate bid was made for the television rights in South Africa and football fans there will be able to watch more than 300 EPL matches this season.Bezuidenhout said the disconnections by some members of the public, who donned the colours of their favourite English teams on Saturday, were processed within 25 minutes.Bezuidenhout said people simply had to fill in a disconnection form and present their account number for the services to be stopped.”The were no letters required for this to be done, as people were saying earlier,” he said.He said some other people decided to downgrade to the Impact Bouquet, which offers fewer channels.The subscription fee for this bouquet is N$228 a month, whereas the Premium Bouquet costs N$439 a month.The EPL matches were screened as part of the Premium Bouquet.Another interesting development is that MultiChoice’s request to work in partnership with GTV – which holds the majority rights – was turned down.Bezuidenhout said GTV have applied to the Namibia Communications Commission (NCC) for a licence to start broadcasting in Namibia.Meanwhile, Windhoek lawyer Lucius Murorua, who is at the forefront of the protest against DStv, said there would be a meeting for dissatisfied football fans to look at the possibility of making the matches available to Namibians through GTV.He said GTV had proposed that they should find a big venue such as a stadium or a large restaurant where matches can be screened live.Muroruasaid his committee would discuss this option.MultiChoice’s Bezuidenhout reiterated that Namibian football fans can still enjoy matches from other leagues around the world.He said SuperSport has improved its football coverage apart from the EPL and now also offer the French, Spanish and Portuguese leagues, while fans also have access to football programmes offered by Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona.