Multichoice announces strategy change with 'affordable' bouquet

"The strategy change signals a move by MultiChoice to tier its offering for various markets. As a result of the launch, MultiChoice will be able to lower the barrier to entry for aspirant subscribers and will target an audience for which pay television was previously out of reach. This is especially true as the levels of disposable income continue to climb amongst the growing middle class," says MultiChoice CEO Nolo Letele.

"Up until now, MultiChoice had only offered its full-service DStv Premium bouquet to subscribers. However, there has been much demand over the last three years for the company to expand into new markets, and extensive research into the various options has shown that a gap does exist for such an offering," he says.

Letele says that the launch of the compact bouquet offering is expected to have a direct impact on MultiChoice's subscriber figures. "We expect the launch to boost subscriber figures by as much as 42 000 households over the next 14 months. These new subscribers are over and above the growth expected from the premium offering.

"Our current digital subscriber base stands at over 875 000 and we have seen ongoing fantastic growth in that market. Now we're excited to take that base to the next level, with the idea ultimately, that Compact subscribers upgrade to DStv's Premium bouquet over time," says Letele. Expectations are that the migration of current DStv Premium bouquet subscribers to the Compact offering will be less than 1%.

Channels which make up the new offering are pre-defined, implying that subscribers cannot subscribe to the channels of their choice. This has been determined by content, distribution rights and the various price agreements that MultiChoice has secured with the channel suppliers. "The mix does, however, mean that entertainment comes at an affordable price and subscribers can rest assured that the DStv Compact channels have been carefully researched to ensure that the key viewing genres are catered for in the overall mix of channels," he says.

The DStv Compact offering will be made up of 11 selected channels and will be available at a reduced monthly subscription cost of R199.00. The following channels make up the DStv Compact bouquet: SuperSport 3, Hallmark, ActionX, Reality, Channel 0, BBC News, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, SABC Africa, Rhema and TBN, with the free-to-air channels, SABC 1, 2, 3, ETV and the DStv radio channels also available to DStv Compact subscribers. The channels represent a broad spectrum of content interests across some of DStv's most popular channels.