From 5 November, DStv in Nigeria comes in 4 sizes. Starter costs ₦6,000 a month, Select ₦11,000, Sports ₦21,000 and Premium ₦44,500. GOtv gets the same treatment, with 4 packages called Easy, Starter, Select and Sports, though MultiChoice Nigeria hasn't published those prices yet.
Chief executive Kemi Omotosho unveiled the line-up at a media briefing in Lagos on Tuesday, calling it the first step in a wider programme of changes.
What happens to your current plan
Nobody has to do anything. MultiChoice says active accounts move automatically to a tier with the same content or more. Access becomes Starter, Family becomes Select, Compact becomes Sports and Compact Plus becomes Premium.
The Compact move is where the money is. Compact costs ₦19,000 a month today, so a Compact household moving to Sports pays ₦2,000 more, a 10.5% rise (STATART calculation). In return it gets every English Premier League and Champions League match, plus WWE and UFC. For a Lagos household that keeps DStv for football, that's the package that matters.
Premium stays at ₦44,500, the same as now. Starter now carries SuperSport KICKOFF and Africa Magic+.
Chasing the cheaper end
The rest of the launch is aimed at people who might never buy a full decoder bundle. DStv Stream, which runs on a phone or smart TV without a dish, starts at ₦6,000, the same as Starter. New customers can get a DStv or GOtv decoder, the full kit and 1 month of the entry package for ₦15,000.
MultiChoice didn't give subscriber targets or say how it expects revenue to move, so the bet can't be scored yet. The company is asking Nigerian households to trade up for sport and down for everything else. Watch the GOtv prices when they're published, since GOtv is the cheaper platform and its tiers will decide how far the entry price really falls.
Figures are as reported at the time of writing. STATART news is written by Frank Brother (Markets), Christina Amgbari (Insights) and Ebipadei Joseph (Lifestyle), and checked before publication.