DSTV Drops its Prices, Adds New Bouquet
If anything good has come out of the recent Kwese TV saga, it is the introduction of competition in a market that has, hitherto, been dominated by DSTV. Well, almost. Kwese TV continues to sing the blues, at least in Zimbabwe. However, the new satellite TV offering has shown elsewhere that it is no fly-by-night pretender, as was the case with other challengers, including My TV Africa and Starsat.
We have previously written an article in which we pitted DSTV against Kwese TV. We stated in that article that although DSTV trumps for soccer crazy Zimbabweans, those who have a lesser obsession with the EPL will actually find that Kwese offers greater value for money.
DSTV Drops its Prices and introduces a new bouquet
Ask DSTV and you will probably be told that the recent decision by the company to drop its price and introduce a new bouquet has nothing to do with the Kwese TV saga. However, it remains a fact that the company recently moved to cut its prices to the following;
| Bouquet | Old Price | New Price |
|---|---|---|
| Compact Plus | $47 | $45 |
| Compact | $28 | $29 |
| Family | $17 | $19 |
| Access | $11 | $13 |
| Lite | New bouquet | $8 |
As you can see in the above table, DSTV has cut its prices for the Compact Plus and the Compact Bouquets. The lower priced Family and Access bouquets remain unchanged.
DSTV adds a new bouquet
The company has also introduced the new, Lite bouquet, which costs an eye watering $7 a month. This comes with 26 television channels channels, and 64 audio channels. Available television entertainment channels include;
- Sony entertainment television
- Mzansi Wethu (SD/HD)
- Mzansi Bioskop
- Eva+
To be honest, the only channel that I would watch on the list is the Sony entertainment channel. The other ones are…well…
Sport
For sport lovers, there is Blitz and SuperSport 9. Clearly not much there, but then you will only be paying $7 per month.
News
There are no international news channels, which makes it a no go area for those who wish to wake up to some gory attack somewhere.
Will the move help?
If Kwese TV ever eventually gets the license that it is looking for, DSTV’s new pricing structure should force those who had been raring to jump ship think twice. A major hurdle however for DSTV is the fact that the company still faces payment issues, considering the foreign currency challenges that exist in Zimbabwe at the moment.
It won’t help, therefore, for a person to be asked to pay an additional $5 processing fee when making a DSTV subscription, as has become the case in recent day.
One of the major draws for Kwese TV was, in this regard, the fact that it allowed payment using ECOCASH and Swipe, which would have made it easy for Zimbabweans to purchase their subscriptions. As it is, DSTV may have dropped its prices, but will it also move to make it possible for people to easily settle their subscriptions?