The House of Representatives Monday told MultiChoice, the owners of DSTV that there is no going back on the implementation of the Pay-As-You-Go/Pay per view/pay per watch regime.
The Chairman of the House Ad Hoc Committee Investigating the Non-Implementation of Pay As You GO Tariff Plan By Broadcast Satellite Providers, Unyime Idem made this declaration at an investigative hearing in Abuja.
Idem directed that the company should as a matter of urgency comply with the new National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) code and allow for content sharing and local content development.
He said there is a clarion call by Nigerians and stakeholders within the broadcast industry for a change in the price regime of all Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTl’) and Direct To—Home (DTH) providers from the present one bundle system to pay-as-you-go/pay-per-view/pay-per-watch. i.e. daily, weekly or monthly model.
The lawmaker argued that: “It is in this vein that we have to listen to the plight of Nigerians by living up to our constitutional responsibilities as stipulated in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended for the full implementation of Pay-As-You-Go model across Nigeria by satellite TV operators.
“We are also of the opinion that MultiChoice, the owners of DSTV is not sensitive to the plight of Nigerians at large for increasing the tariff of their various bouquet and anchoring that on VAT increment from 5% to 7.5% wherein the real sense most of its bouquet price tariff is more than the 2.5% increment, unlike many other companies both local and international that are providing palliative measures to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is worthy of note that on Tuesday 30th June 2020, the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the Ag. DG of NBC confirmed to this Ad-hoc Committee on Pay-As-You-Go model that Pay-As-You-Go is not only possible but it has started in Nigeria with other providers and that there is a new approved National Broadcasting code agreed to by all stakeholders”.
But in his presentation, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Multichoice, John Ugbe told the Committee that the Pay-As-You-Go model is not technically or commercially feasible as the firm is yet to see a pay-TV business anywhere in the world that does pay as you go in the sense intended in Nigeria.
“To make the pay as you watch model feasible, a wholesale restructuring of the technical and billing architecture for satellite broadcasting will have to be done, and the resultant effect would be that services will be delivered to subscribers at a much higher cost”, Ugbe said.
He explained that: “Pay per view (PPV) is most times confused for the “pay as you go” (PAYG) model deployed by mobile telecommunication companies. The PAYG model as offered in the telecommunication business is a metered service where consumers are billed only for the service they consume and not for a fixed period.
“Telecommunications companies are able to offer PAYG services because they operate a two-way communication system in which they are able to determine when a consumer is connected, the service consumed and duration of time the consumer is connected.
“However, satellite broadcasters cannot offer pay-tv services in the manner offered by mobile telecommunication operators because satellite broadcasting is linear, not a two-way system, as satellite broadcasters are unable to determine when a subscriber is connected and/or watching or which channel is being viewed”.
Ugbe also disclosed that Multichoice has, directly and indirectly, contributed a total value of N634.6 billion ($2.1BN) to Nigeria’s economy for five years period of 2015 to 2019.
According to him, within the 5-year period, MultiChoice has contributed N357.4 billion to Nigeria’s GDP;
N49.8 billion in terms of tax and regulatory fees; N8.7 billion in infrastructure investment; N86.8 billion cost savings for subscribers, employees, and Corporate Social Responsibility beneficiaries.
“Directly and indirectly created 12,323 jobs; and our contributions have impacted on 2.4million Nigerians. We have also invested N357.4billion ($1.2 billion) in our supply chain, N128.9 billion ($428.3million) on capital investments, and N10 billion ($34.8million) on CSR projects.
“In the area of content creation, we have invested $108million (N41 billion) in local content creation. We have also created a value of $351.5million (N133 billion) in the adjacent industries, which has resulted to 9,955 jobs”, Ugbe added.
He further said MultiChoice had donated N1.2 billion to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, 10, 000 Covid-19 testing kits, and opened up six channels to be available free to air so subscribers can receive timely information during the pandemic.
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