DStv price hike for 2016: MultiChoice announces DStv subscription increases from April for various DStv packages

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.

“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

2016 Idols audition dates announced for the 12th season; new season of the reality singing show could move to Mzansi Magic only as M-Net starts The Voice SA.

The audition dates for the 12th season of Idols in 2016 have been announced and people who want to enter will get the chance to do so in Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

After a massive spike in voting from 24 million votes in 2014 to almost 79 million votes for the just completed season in which Karabo Mogane won, it looks as if Idols is going to become a Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) show only, although M-Net has not yet confirmed it.

Since the 7th season in 2011 Idols has been a co-production between M-Net (DStv 101) and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) for the past four seasons.

As the viewership demographics of Idols changed over the past few years due to the dual broadcast on both channels, and with M-Net that picked up The Voice South Africa that will start at the end of January 2016 and be shown only on M-Net, it's looking increasingly likely that Idols will be moved off M-Net to a Mzansi Magic  reality competition show only.

M-Net declined to give a definite answer on Sunday when asked if M-Net is going to stop showing Idols and if the show is moving to just Mzansi Magic in 2016.

"Idols has done phenomenally well on both M-Net and Mzansi Magic," said Gideon Khobane, the M-Net director for general entertainment channels.

"What we do know is there will be a season 12 of Idols next year and there will be The Voice SA next year."

"We haven't made any announcements yet or any final decisions regarding it. We just want to see how the last voting went and ratings. There's enough space in South Africa to do both shows because we've got so much talent," said Gideon Khobane.

Idols auditions in 2016 will start at the end of January.

Durban, The Playhouse, Saturday 30 January 2016
Pretoria, The State Theatre,Saturday 6 February 2016
Johannesburg, Carnival City, Sunday 28 February 2016
Cape Town, Grand West Casino, Saturday 5 March 2016