After Eskom told South African consumers they will have to fork out 9.4% more for electricity in 2016, MultiChoice announce its annual price increases for the year as well, coming into effect from April and for the first time ever DStv Premium breaks through the psychological level of R700 per month.
DStv Premium, DStv Extra and DStv
Compact packages are increasing by a whopping 8% or more – higher than
inflation.
MultiChoice says fees for DStv Access
and DStv decoder insurance have not increased, and that the subscription for
DStv EasyView has decreased.
While MultiChoice in Africa for the
first time ever hiked DStv subscriptions for a second time in one year in 2015
as African currencies tanked agains the dollar, South Africans were spared.
MultiChoice must pay in dollar and
sterling for its international TV channels supplied by various channel
providers for its DStv platform, as well as to procure expensive sports content
rights, that combined run into billions of rand annually. Similarly local
broadcasters like M-Net and e.tv buy the foreign content to schedule on their
locally packaged channels in dollar from Hollywood.
While the rand also dramatically
weakened against the greenback, South African DStv subscribers were spared a
second price increase in the same year as what happened in 2015 in the
continent’s other larger economies, including Uganda and Kenya.
In Nigeria, MultiChoice in 2015 upped DStv subscriptions by 20% and between 21% and 30% in Zambia, leading to consumer outrage. In May a Nigerian court case against the DStv price increase was dismissed.
In Nigeria, MultiChoice in 2015 upped DStv subscriptions by 20% and between 21% and 30% in Zambia, leading to consumer outrage. In May a Nigerian court case against the DStv price increase was dismissed.
“We buy most of our this fantastic
content in foreign currency and due to the depreciation of the rand by 29%
since April 2015, our costs have gone up dramatically,” says MultiChoice.
“Over the past five years our
adjustments have been in line with this action. We’ve worked very really hard
to keep this year’s fees manageable,” says MultiChoice.
2015
1 April 2016
DStv Premium R699
R759
DStv
Extra
R425
R459
DStv
Compact R319
R345
DStv
Select
R199
R219
DStv
Family
R199
R219
DStv
Access
R99
R99
DStv
EasyView
R39
R29
M-Net
analogue/CSN
R335
R369
DStv BoxOffice PVR rental R30 R35
DStv Access Fee R80 R85
DStv BoxOffice PVR rental R30 R35
DStv Access Fee R80 R85