It makes me mad. Perhaps I have not understood it well enough to take anything but a subjective view. But the story from TechCentral titled: MultiChoice a bullying monopoly: Carrim is well worth a read. Yes, Multichoice is a monopoly, but it was funded entirely by private interests in the errrr ... interest of their shareholders. DStv did not just happen overnight. And if the offering was not worth the price, people would make up their own minds and watch the alternative, lest I remind you, SABC. Where things are seemingly going poorly, for a long, long time. And you still paying your licence? Because you know, it is the right thing to do.
So your options in South Africa are, if you can of course afford it (affordability is a big thing here), quality TV, or the public broadcaster. If you needed reminding, from the annual results last year, the Multichoice part, last year:
The net base grew by 470,000 customers from March 2012 to close on 4.5 million households as at 31 March 2013. The Compact package increased by 140,000 customers. PVR distribution reached 830,000 and the BoxOffice service proved popular with an average monthly rental of more than 400,000 movies.
There were as at March 2013, 4,451,553 households who were happy to pay for TV, because they thought that it was worth it. Who wrote the song, 57 channels and nothing on? It was Bruce Springsteen who wrote and sang that song, but I think it does not apply to the satellite TV provider DStv. As a subscriber of DStv and a shareholder of Naspers, I can honestly say that for around 70 Dollars, the sports offering, the movies on demand, the programs on the bouquet that I subscribe for are all world class, value for money and exceed my expectations. You can watch sport (provided that is
your thing) to your hearts content. I think for Multichoice, the PSL rights were a major coup. I don't know about you, but I have watched football (international Bafana games mostly) on SABC and then local football (OK, the Bucs lost on the weekend, not good for me) on Supersport, the differences are worlds apart.
I for one am interested to see whether or not Multichoice has managed to add the same number of subscribers in this last year, at the half year stage the number reported was 7.3 million for the whole of Africa, 48 countries in total. In South Africa, the number of subscribers back then 4,699,000, another 250 odd thousand people added for the half year. That means that the pace of additions is taking place at breakneck speed, nearly 6 percent half on half. Wow. And numbers wise? For the half year revenues are a whopping 17.1 billion Rand, trading profits are 4.5 billion Rand. This is a big business.
Point is, what I am trying to make is that if the ruling party have a problem with the position of monopoly, then why doesn't ICASA open the floodgates on fixed line now. Because there has been pushback against the mobile operators too, in terms of interconnect. Talking of which, did anyone see the Sunday Times advert "We're Guilty"? See this article with all the wording:
MTN "We're Guilty" A Response to Cell C
Anyhows, the point I wanted to make is that Multichoice had succeeded in offering a world class service to their customers where the public broadcaster had failed. MTN and Vodacom had succeeded where for all intents and purposes Telkom had failed to connect the country. Failed is a little harsh, seeing as Telkom owned half of Vodacom once upon a time.
Business does and always will do business best, and whilst the new communications minister might at heart have the interests of the masses, business is delivering the masses world class services where none existed before. If the service offering becomes too expensive, people will stop watching. If Multichoice cannot offer affordable sports (I still believe this is the major trump card) viewing, people will not buy the offering. According to census 2011, there were 14 450 161 dwellings in South Africa. Do not tell me for a second that all of them do not want quality satellite TV at a reasonable cost. And whilst the ruling party is dealing with monopolies, there is this pesky little issue with power generation ....