According to Daily Nation, MultiChoice which operates across Africa, is rejecting calls to resell exclusive sports content to other TV platforms.
Across Africa sports coverage - especially international sports coverage through exclusive rights agreements - remains a big driver of pay-TV uptake and helps curb churn. Pay-TV subscribers sign up and keep watching and subscribing to broadcasters and pay-TV providers who have the sports they want to see.
Rivals such as the new Wananchi Group have asked Kenia's broadcasting regulator, the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) to force MultiChoice to sell some of especially its sports content to them. Rivals are particularly interested in the English Premier League.
There's been an investigation by the Competition Authority to look into DStv's perceived market dominance in the region.
According to the pay-TV platform in the article, DStv says that if it's forced by a broadcasting regulator to share content such as SuperSport, it would harm its revenues and the appeal to advertisers.
Nolo Letele, the executive chairman of MultiChoice South Africa who spoke today in Nairobi, Kenia during a press briefing, said, according to Business Daily that "exclusivity is the principle on which pay-TV works" and that "these sports rights periodically come up for renewal and anyone is free to bid".
According to the pay-TV operator TV content could possibly be shared for premium sports programming such as major European football league matches if broadcasters who it is resold to agree to not show it live at the same time as on DStv.
