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I can give the facts and reveal that TopTV's announced 200 000 TopTV subscriber number includes some active subscribers who are continuing to receive an unblocked signal, although they're behind on payments.
Normally pay TV subscribers' signal is blocked and scrambled immediately after non-payment and only reactivated once full payment of the arrears amount is made, but On Digital Media (ODM) tells me there are indeed subscribers that have not been cut and that the company is making a dedicated effort to recoup payment from these subscribers.
Speculation started swirling days ago in the TV industry - but not yet reported on anywhere - that TopTV is blatantly driving subscriber numbers although signed-up subscribers who default on their monthly payments are kept on the active TV signal system. According to the rumour, TopTV is reluctant to ''cut off subscribers'' when they're in payment default, in arrears or simply not paying, ''just so they can make numbers''. I asked TopTV whether this is indeed the case and if yes, why this is happening.
''Like any business we have customers who are not paying and we have been trying to recoup this money from them without resorting to switching off the service,'' says Elouise Kelly, ODM's chief marketing officer. ''As everyone is aware we had issues at launch, one of those being our call centre being inundated with calls. During this period certain details were entered into our system incorrectly which resulted in some of our subscribers not knowing how or where to pay, and in certain instances us not having the correct details for TopTV subscribers,'' says Elouise Kelly. ''This was of course no fault of our subscribers and we do not want to unfairly penalise them.''
TopTV isn't saying how many subscribers are behind on their monthly payments.
ALSO READ: TopTV hits 200 000 subscribers and 800 000 viewers.
ALSO READ: What TopTV's astounding subscriber number of 200 000 actually means.
