Before long, SLTV became the most talked about Pay TV product in Nigeria, with many Nigerians dumping their DSTV decoders in favour of it. The reason is not very far-fetched; the product offers your most important channels at the most affordable prices. While DSTV’s highest monthly premium package goes for 37,000 naira, SLTV’s highest subscription package is pegged at 5,000 naira. This is roughly the same cost as DSTV’s second cheapest package, DSTV Yanga.
Indeed, Multichoice’s recent report shows that the company lost 18 per cent of its Nigerian users in the year ending March. In all likelihood, the company may have lost more between March and June which was the height of the SLTV frenzy.
But now, months after using the SLTV package, users are beginning to groan about the quality, the instantaneousness and the sustainability of the product. This is particularly so for users whose major reason for obtaining the service was to watch live football matches, games and other live events. For them, not only do pictures on the premium channels come in very low quality, they also turn up 1 minute later.
Another user, Christian, agreed that these were issues, although he said it was good enough considering that one would be paying a paltry 20 per cent of what they would have paid to access the same content on DSTV.
This means, while watching a football game that is live, apart from the poor quality, there is a high chance that you would have heard shouts of “goal” one minute before you actually see it play out on your screen. Whether that could still accurately be described as live tv is entirely up to the user.
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Fears around SLTV infringing on DSTV copyright
The quality and timeliness of content is not the only worries SLTV users are worried about as there are fears that its premium channels like SuperSports are exclusive content to its bigger and more illustrious competitor, DSTV. This fear of copyright infringement has led many to think the Nigeria-based service won’t offer those contents for long especially if Multichoice were to decide to block them.
Another Tweep, Othell Yarwick took it a knot higher, indicting the Nigerian government and its people of their “natural disposition to be dubious.”
FG Increases Hate Speech Fine to N5 Million, Bans Exclusive Contents in Revised NBC Code
Following the release of the code back in June 2020, reports claimed that global streaming service providers, Netflix, Amazon and popular DSTV channel Africa Magic considered halting further investments in the Nigerian content industry.
Indeed, CEO of iROKOTV at the time claimed the NBC amended code will be the death of payTv in the country. A few months later, the company exited Nigeria, claiming regulatory and economic woes.