by Thinus Ferreira
Pulling the trigger in a Mexican standoff, MultiChoice is shutting down
its DStv service in Malawi effectively immediately and leaving subscribers
without access to news and entertainment – the first time the pan-African
pay-TV operator has ever done so – after Malawi's communications regulator
blocked it from hiking prices.
DStv Malawi is telling subscribers to stop payments for DStv and that
all existing subscribers in the country will be cut off within 30 days or less,
with no new DStv subscriptions or reconnections that will be done from
today.
In January this year, Malawi's regulator, the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), fined MultiChoice Malawi for its DStv price hike it implemented in July 2022 and also ordered it to refund all DStv subscribers for adjusting its DStv tariffs without approval from the regulator.
Malawi's latest price increase for 2023 was set to come into effect from August as part
of the latest in a string of DStv price hikes done by MultiChoice Africa and which
has seen DStv price increased this year in various countries across the continent ranging from South Africa to Ghana, from Nigeria to Uganda, as well as Zambia and Tanzania.
In August, MultiChoice hiked DStv fees by up to another 6% in Kenya for a second time this year after a 10% increase a few months earlier in April and
in Ghana MultiChoice also increased DStv fees by up to another 18% in a second increase this year after raising prices by up to 19% in February in the
West-African nation.
MultiChoice Africa blames weakening African currencies as well as
runaway inflation rates for the large increases, as well as the double yearly
hikes in Ghana and Kenya.
After MultiChoice Malawi announced
yet another price hike in the Southeast African country which was set to come
into effect from August 2023, the country's communications regulator, Malawi's regulator ordered MultiChoice not to
implement any price increases from August.
MultiChoice Malawi then went to court
on 31 July and applied for an emergency injunction against the regulator's
order, which was granted by the country's High Court and which remained in
effect until yesterday, 8 August.
MultiChoice Malawi said that it had no
choice but to increase DStv fees, since it's not MultiChoice Malawi but
MultiChoice Africa Holdings (MAH) based in Dubai which is overall deciding on
the DStv price increases across the continent which are then implemented by
various countries' localised MultiChoice executive management.
After MultiChoice Malawi's injunction
was granted, Daud Suleman, MACRA director-general, in a statement, said
that once it lapsed the regulator will still not allow MultiChoice Malawi to
charge higher DStv fees.
Daud Suleman said that "the
current, unchanged and approved DStv tariffs will apply from 8 August 2023
unless otherwise directed by the court", with the regulator that remained
adamant that MultiChoice was not going to be allowed to charge its subscribers
more from August.
Now MultiChoice has decided to shut
DStv down in Malawi since it's not allowed to increase pay-TV fees.
MultiChoice Africa Holdings confirmed
to TVwithThinus that MultiChoice is withdrawing "services from Malawi with
immediate effect. This follows the injunction issued by the High Court in
Lilongwe in a matter between MultiChoice Malawi and MACRA prohibiting an
adjustment to the DStv tariffs".
According to Dr Keabetswe
Modimoeng, MultiChoice Africa group executive for corporate affairs,
"MultiChoice Malawi does not offer the DStv service to the
public and therefore cannot set or adjust tariffs for this service, a
point repeatedly made to MACRA".
"As a result, the order handed
down to MCM is incapable of being implemented by them but carries with it
grave consequences for the directors and management of MultiChoice Malawi,
including imprisonment."
"MultiChoice Holdings Africa,
given the impact on its supplier MultiChoice Malawi and an increasingly
adverse regulatory environment is therefore left with no option but to
terminate the DStv service indefinitely."
DStv subscribers in Malawi are
"requested to halt payment for the DStv service," the pay-TV
operator says.
"Customers who have already paid
their new subscription for the DStv service will have those services honoured
until the current 30 day viewing cycle ends on or before 10 September 2023. From Wednesday 9 August 2023 no
new subscriptions or reconnections will be accepted."
"MultiChoice Africa
Holdings would like to thank customers for their support over many years.
MAH would also like to thank MultiChoice Malawi for their professional conduct
in supplying services to MAH over as many years."
MultiChoice Africa Holdings shutting down DStv in Malawi breaks a promise it made 14 years ago in 2009 when the pay-TV operator said its DStv service would not exit the country.
After another pay-TV operator in the country shut down, MultiChoice told DStv subscribers in Malawi that it has "a track record that shows that we are going to be there until time in memorial" and that "MultiChoice has been in operation for over decades and operates within 48 countries in Africa so it is an assurance that we are stable economically".
