Dstv pulls plug on English Premiership games

Dstv pulls plug on English Premiership games

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By Torby Chimhashu

CONTINENTAL broadcaster, Multichoice Africa, through its pay-per-view brand, Dstv, has shut out subscribers outside South Africa from viewing the majority of games involving English Premiership teams.

The move, which officials say stems from loss of broadcasting rights, has come as a shock to subscribers who failed to watch the matches at the weekend when the 2007/2008 Barclays Premiership campaign got underway.

Even this week midweek matches would not be shown.

Dstv programmes guides revealed that matches involving Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea were only accessible to South African viewers only.

These big clubs have massive following in Africa where Man United and Arsenal top the support rankings.

Traditionally, Multichoice Africa sports subsidiary, Super Sport, screened at least three matches live involving the English premiership big four, depending on the day of the fixtures.

The matches were shown on Super Sport 3, 5, 6, and 7 which translated to Channels 23, 24, 25 26, and 27.

On Monday, Multichoice Zimbabwe, an agent of Multichoice Africa, said Zimbabwe had lost the right to broadcast the bulk of matches involving the English top four clubs.

A customer agent said: "We have lost the rights. Multichoice Zimbabwe will only screen 80 matches live and these do not necessarily mean they involve all the top teams.

"South Africans have the privilege to watch many matches because they have the rights and also their subscribers pay more subscription fees than anybody else.
"They pay monthly subscriptions and reconnection fees which Zimbabweans don’t.”

Multichoice managing director Dean Westlake was expected to address a tide of customer complaints when he returns from holiday later this week.

Zimbabwean subscribers pay the equivalent monthly subscriptions of US$57. Multichoice does not accept single monthly subscriptions, and subscribers have to pay for three months at a time.

Last week, Multichoice Zimbabwe sent an e-mail informing subscribers that Super Sport channels had been relocated to channels 17,18,19 and 20 while 25, 26,27 and 28 remained the same.

What was not explained was that the original Super Sport 3 (channel 23) would no longer be accessible outside South Africa, but was not changed. Instead, a shadow Super Sport 3 was created on channel 18.

Channel 20, which was interactive, has been blocked to stop featuring events on Super Sport 3. Previously it showed all the action on Super Sport 1,2,3 and 4 at once giving the subscribers the choice of which channel to access quickly.

Multichoice Africa has subscribers in almost the whole continent with the exception of Arabic countries in North Africa - Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco.

Sixty percent of the subscribers are in populous Nigeria.

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