MultiChoice Africa has finally promised Zambia's GOtv subscribers they will get their signal restored from today and apologised, 2 weeks after they were abruptly cut off - with subscribers to MultiChoice's terrestrial pay-TV service that will likely get at least half a month's refund if not more for the bad service interruption.
GOtv subscribers has now been without any service or a signal for half a month with MultiChoice Zambia that should be refunding subscribers who have to pay but got no service for the past two weeks.
Last week furious GOtv Zambia subscribersstormed MultiChoice Zambia's offices with public protests after MultiChoice's failure to speak to them, to explain quickly what is going on, to offer and to promise refunds and to engage with the media to properly explain what is going on regarding the GOtv Zambia signal loss.
Mwika Malindima, MultiChoice Zambia PR manager, sounding incompetent after a week of GOtv subscribers suffering from signal loss, said MultiChoice Zambia would only issue a statement to GOTV Zambia subscribers "once we conclude our discussions" with authorities.
What's been happening is that MultiChoice Zambia encountered unexpected signal interference on its GOtv digital terrestrial television (DTT) frequency, making it impossible for GOtv Zambia subscribers in Livingstone and Solwezi to receive a signal, plunging paying GOTV subscribers into a TV blackout the past two weeks.
On Wednesday, MultiChoice Zambia finally held a press briefing for the media where Caroline Creasy, MultiChoice Africa general manager for corporate affairs, took over.
Caroline Creasy apologised and explained what has been happening, and promised that the GOtv Zambia signal will be restored in Livingstone and Solwezi today.
Caroline Creasy explained that MultiChoice engineers have been working on the signal interference issue. She explained that Zambia's broadcasting regulator, the Zambia Information and Communications Technology (ZICTA) was to blame since ZICTA gave out MultiChoice Zambia's terrestrial frequencies for GOtv Zambia to another operator.
“We are engaging ZICTA and other stakeholders in Zambia to secure the future of our business. However, we sincerely apologise to our clients for the blackout.”
“ZICTA confirmed they gave our signals to another operator and they allocated us a different frequency. The engineers came back from Solwezi and they are now working in Livingstone. We are doing everything possible to have the signal restored,” Caroline Creasy said as reported by the Times of Zambia.
GOtv Zambia subscribers will apparently be "compensated" for the GOtv Zambia service loss although the specifics of what the compensation amounts to isn't clear.
