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Broadcast rights: HiTV, DSTV in battle for subscribers’ attention

HiTV‘s recent loss of the exclusive broadcast rights for the Barclays PremierLeague to DSTV has deepened the rivalry between the two major satelliteTV service providers. SAMSON ECHENIM and UDEME EKWERE capture theinside story and the lamentation of subscribers who have had to switchoften to where the action is

When Mr. John Ado, a civil servant, got

married a few years ago, the first thing he desperately wanted was aDigital Satellite Television (also known as DSTV). He got it throughconsistent saving after two years. As a lover of football, he could notafford to miss the exciting Barclay sponsored European PremiershipLeague. He had to take a soft loan to install a HITV ditch, which hadthe broadcast right.

A year after, Ado is thinking of suspending his subscription pact with HITV. He is also planning toreturn to DSTV, following the award of broadcast right to the EnglishPremiership League.

With high energy and strong desire to be on top of competition, HITV had two years ago offered unbelievablesum of $100m, representing nearly 70 per cent increase, from the $35m,which DSTV used to offer, for the right to broadcast EPL in Nigeria.

But the table has suddenly turned against it. HITV can no longer fulfill that. The right has been returned to DSTV.

Now HITV is adopting multiple counter strategies, including slashingsubscription fee by over 45 per cent, to remain in business as soccerloving Nigerian subscribers massively shift to DSTV, after it failed tosecure the EPL right.

The Barclays Premier League is the biggest continuous annual sporting event in the world, watched byover 2.5 billion fans in the world and broadcast to more than 500million homes, according to available company data.

According to information obtained from HITV website, which was posted on August9, the drama of right became intense on July 19, deadline for HITV topay up.

Having won the right and had earlier paid $40m, HITV was to get bank guarantee for the balance of $75m on July 23, whenit got a ”rude shock and disappointing” announcement by DSTV of itsacquisition of the right on July 22.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Hi Media, owners of the pay TV,Mr. Toyin Subair, had blamed the ongoing reforms of the Central Bank ofNigeria for the loss, which he said affected HITV bankers swiftness inmeeting the July 19 deadline.

However, all that is now history. The first indigenous pay TV is making frantic efforts atensuring that it continues to, at least, control a significant portionof the market size, while analysts are of the opinion that thedevelopment does not necessarily spell doom for the company.

When one of our correspondents visited HITV, he was told the company‘spublic relations officer and the CEO were not available. Calls latermade to their mobile telephones were not responding.

A statement on the company‘s website, however, quoted Subair as saying,however, that HITV was fortunate to have, over the past couple ofyears, moved away from building its business model around the BarclaysPremier League.

”Although we lost the rights, we have over the years grown our brand with other premium content for all. Iwant to correct the impression that HITV is all about the EnglishPremier League. While we pride ourselves as number one in the area ofsports content, especially football, HITV is purely an entertainmentPay TV company with lots of other entertainment content for the viewingdelight of its numerous subscribers,” he said.

Although HITV still maintains sports content such as the UEFA Champions League,Carling Cup, Europa Cup and Italian Serie A, soccer lovers are troopingout and hooking up with DSTV, according to findings by ourcorrespondents.

For instance, a housewife, Mrs. Mary Ehinanya, said her husband watched HITV just because of the EPL. Nowthat the EPL is no more on HITV, the family‘s next line of action iseasily guessed.

She said, ”Even the other games HITV shows are usually not live, and so, we will not miss it at all, we willjust subscribe to DSTV which we stopped subscribing to following theirloss of the license a few years back.

Mr. Julius Akposhare, who lives in Ikorodu, said he managed to pay the N6,000subscription for HITV just because of the Premiership League, butdoubted paying again even with the reduction to N3,500 per month,following the loss of licence.

”That was the only reason why I had HITV, you know DSTV was more expensive. But I havespoken to my neighbours who subscribes to DSTV, and we have agreed thatI will connect to it. There is a way we can do it, then I will givethem some money so that they can join and be paying for the DSTV, thatis the way we will manage the situation,” he said.

For Mr. Jibril Layiwola, a sports analyst, the fact that HITV lost thelicence will not make much difference, even though he said there wasnot much to HITV outside EPL in terms of sports.

HITV insisted in the online statement that it had an array of channels andthat it would continue to acquire more to cater for all categories ofviewers.

”We are bringing in 10 more new channels in a couple of weeks. For kids, there is Hi Kids, Kids Co and Nickelodeon.For movies, we have Hi Movies, Hi Mix, among others and for news thereis BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera and Hi News, Amuludun, Biscon and TVC,among others, which take care of local programming.

”For entertainment, Hi Nolly is one of the best movie channels one can getin this part of the world and plans are on to ensure that all the filmsyou watch on Hi Nolly are all new films. We now have a new channelsmanager who is doing the best she can to make this dream a reality.”

A major innovation is the replacement of its music channel, Nigezie withOne Music, which came into effect on August 1, as the pay TV pledged itwould continue to grow business model and invest in all opportunities,which bring entertainment and information to Nigerians.

”We are aware of the ongoing reforms in the banking sector and there was notime that HITV blamed the CBN for the loss of the EPL rights, thereforms will be of benefit to all of us and our children in the future,so that is clear.”

”Hi Nolly and One Music signals are being seen in 10 African countries as well as Europe, America andCanada. ”Both Hi Nolly and One Music signals are seen in Ghana, Uganda,Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Malawi, Sudan and Eritrea onWannachi platform and in South Africa we are on Top TV.”

”We are going ahead with the plan, so now our valued subscribers canwatch premium sport, movies and enjoy music at a far reduced price.Nigerians deserve to enjoy quality programmes at a price that won‘tkill them, we would have reduced the price before even if we had thePremiership right because the plan has been hatched for some monthsnow,” he said.

Also, on fears of loss of job, a HITV employee, who spoke with our correspondent on Thursday, on condition ofanonymity, said the company had no plans to lay off workers. Heexpressed strong optimism that the company would continue to remain inbusiness, adding that the EPL right loss was not enough to threaten itsexistence.

An avid HITV follower, who is also a banker, Mr. Tijani Lawanson, said the news that HITV lost the right to beam theEnglish Premier League to Nigerians for the next European footballseason would not make much difference to him.

He said being a subscriber to both DSTV and HITV, the loss of the licence byHITV, simply means that he would have to focus more on watching DSTV.