MultiChoice Africa regional director for East Africa, Mr Stephen Isaboke during the launch of DSTV Access in Kenya. FILE
What you need to know:
CCK says the status quo will prevail and it has dropped the bid to review the law that may have allowed the sharing of content among the pay TV operators.
The content-sharing model was aimed at reducing the dominance of DStv.
There were concerns that DStv had locked in the majority of pay-TV viewers to its network, making it difficult for other players to break even.
The telecoms industry regulator has made a U-turn on the push for MultiChoice, the owners of DStv, to re-sell some of its exclusive content like the English Premier League rights to rivals.
The Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) says the status quo will prevail and it has dropped the bid to review the law that may have allowed the sharing of content among the pay TV operators.
The content-sharing model was aimed at reducing the dominance of DStv, which was the subject of an investigation by the Competition Authority that sought to establish whether or not it had unwarranted concentration of economic power.
There were concerns that DStv had locked in the majority of pay-TV viewers to its network, making it difficult for other players to break even.
“We have not been able to ask DStv to share it exclusive content, especially the English Premiership League with its rivals because we don’t have a law to support our demand,” Francis Wangusi, the CCK director general told the Business Daily in an interview.
“DStv rivals have raised this matter several times, but you see it can only be done within the law and until then the status quo shall prevail,” he added.
The rivals, led by Wananchi Group, have been calling on the regulator to compel MultiChoice to sell them some of its contents, especially the English Premier League, which it has used to grow and defend its market share.
The firm has maintained a stranglehold on the region’s pay-TV segment for the last 20 years, managing to win a loyal following of about three million subscribers in several African countries on the back of exclusive content.
Entrants into the Kenya pay-TV segment, however, claim Multichoice is monopolising content and ultimately hampering the growth of the industry.
Smart TV early last year closed shop on low uptake of its service and inadequate funding, making it the second pay-television operator in Kenya to exit the market after GTV fell into financial distress in 2009.
The CCK was last year keen to follow Nigeria, UK and Italy on the content-sharing model.
In Nigeria, the battle for premium content pitted DStv against local pay-TV operator HiTV in 2010, with the former wresting the rights to air lucrative English Premier League matches from the Nigerian company.
MultiChoice said that such a move was tried in South Africa, but was not successful because without exclusivity, the value of content reduces immensely translating to lower earnings for the sporting and film industry and low uptake by advertisers.
The South African operator has been open to share privileged content like the major European football league matches, should the rivals delay their programming.
It recently moved to diversify its product through sale of mobile TV products and the launch of a new service that will allow mobile subscribers to watch satellite television on their handsets at a low cost.
DStv has a number of products with the premium offering retailing at Sh7,134 ($82) monthly while the low-end product goes for Sh873 ($10)—which are pricier compared to its rivals.
In the past three years, the entry of Wananchi with its Zuku brand and StarTimes has pushed the competition a notch higher forcing DStv to roll out bouquets that cater for low income earners. StarTimes charges between Sh499 and Sh2,499 for its packages.
