There was a time when DStv was the undisputed king of the television hill, but those days seem like they have already come to an end.

There’s Netflix (and chill), there’s Showmax, there’s the internet – all of these and other factors have seen a sharp decline in the amount of DStv subscribers.

Not that Naspers, the media giants who own DStv, are feeling the financial pinch, with their profit for the last 12 months (April – March) sitting at around $1,2 billion (R18 billion).

That being said they’re not happy about the falling subscriber list, with this from Fin24:

Naspers has benefited from an early investment in Tencent Holdings, in which it owns a 34% stake. It also owns Africa’s biggest pay-TV network, DStv. The pay-TV business has been struggling, with subscription numbers falling by 288 000 in 2016.

“We have also lost a lot of subscribers in the last year in sub Saharan Africa, people have just not been able to afford it,” [Naspers Chief Executive Officer Bob] Van Dijk said. “We bill in local currencies, but our costs are in dollars. It is quite painful when the currencies are running in the wrong direction.”

The company has frozen prices and says it expects a difficult few years in sub Saharan Africa.

I think the problem, friends at DStv, is that you’ve frozen the quality of your programming too. It’s cool that I can see the same show on eight different channels over the course of a few hours, but I thought the point of having all those channels was something called choice?

At the end of the day it seems it’s just Supersport that keeps many hanging on, although get a little crafty online and you can watch just about anything.

I guess that’s what it all boils down to – hook yourself up with a quality internet service provider (hint, it isn’t Telkom) and the world is your oyster.

You may have to give up listening to Breyton, Ashwin and Naas on the ‘experts’ panel but such is life I guess.

[source:fin24]