Last weekend’s satellite television weekend was, to put it mildly, a disgrace. MultiChoice, the South African satellite signal distributor (or as it prefers to call itself, a platform operator) of satellite television programmes, is preparing for the launch of another of DStv’s famous ”bouquets”. This new DStv offering is called ”Compact”, a veritable el cheapo for R190 a month. In order to prepare the older decoders of many of MultiChoice’s existing customers, certain remote electronic re-jigging was necessary.
These re-jigs usually take place during the small hours. Not so when MultiChoice effectively put everyone’s decoders on the blink for the whole of last weekend. When viewers turned on, their decoders weren’t working. Viewers were referred to a complicated set of on-screen instructions telling them what to do in order to restore the service they had paid lank bucks for.
For those with newer decoders it was merely a case of switching to a particular channel. If this worked, then it was case of Press OK and forget about it — except that MultiChoice disabled even these newer decoders several times more. Just to make sure we had obeyed its orders. Just too bad if you had programmed your VCR for a recording.
Far worse for those with older decoders. Their services remained deactivated until they had supplied MultiChoice with the details it was demanding. To get their services back, these paid-up customers were expected to spend up to an hour of their lives, composing and dispatching to MultiChoice (at their own cost) a complicated SMS, including all their smartcard details, names, addresses, and anything else short of their blood type. An alternative was to phone (at their own cost) a MultiChoice telephone number and join a lengthy electronic queue.
If these owners weren’t obedient, they didn’t get their decoders reactivated until the weekend was over. I spoke to two MultiChoice agents, both of whom described the weekend as ”chaos”: hundreds of their customers phoning in, outraged and confused.
Despite all the talk of preparing the network for the new low-cost bouquet, what MultiChoice apparently was also doing was forcefully updating its own corporate records. Reportedly, MultiChoice has no records of how many of these older decoders are out there. It wanted to acquire not only the numbers, but the actual serial numbers and associated details.
As is usual with MultiChoice, its corporate interests were placed ahead of its customers. It is hard to imagine a more clumsy, officious and incompetent way of doing this decoder re-jigging. A recent example of MultiChoice methodology is the ill-conceived UEC-built low-cost decoder, sponsored by MultiChoice. At R699 a seeming bargain but, alas, with only a single AV outlet! An extra R500 for the adaptor. This, of course, is not mentioned in the advertising.
The same agents told me that there have been virtually no takers for the new R190 bouquet. This offers a pared-down television menu of 16 channels, which doesn’t include M-Net or the movie channels, has only one sports channel, the free- to-air terrestrially available SABC array, and a short selection of mainly bottom-feeder violence and reality schlock. The menu provides a fascinating glimpse into the socio-political philosophies of the DStv corporate mind. The R190 bouquet is designed for the so-called ”black” viewership. Judging by the menu it’s offering, DStv executives believe that the average black mentality does not develop beyond about grade five.
The whole affair was a workaday example of DStv’s and MultiChoice’s attitude to customers: ”Take it or leave it. Ours is the satellite monopoly and you’ll do as we say.” Last weekend was also sadly typical of the attitude that our television broadcasters, satellite or terrestrial, have come to believe is their right. They err in so many small and annoying ways. You could fill pages of examples of their irksome habits.
Our television broadcasters are certainly going to have to stop behaving as if their peremptory cabal is to rumble on forever on its gainful pilgrimage. People are sick and tired of being pushed around, and the Internet is starting to wise us up to all manner of alternatives.
We have seen a first relaxing of the Telkom stranglehold. Legally we may now make voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone-calls at a fraction of the cost — or even free. Skype has unlocked the cage. The commercial one on television is also opening. In the United States and England the advent of the ”intelligent” digital video recorder is changing things for ever. As they feel the control slipping from their grasp, the industry plutocrats of advertising and television are in something of a panic. Their viewers, for so long force-fed with advertising, are beginning to fight back.
To end this week, many congratulations to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) for fining e.tv a total of R40 000 for broadcasting The Boondock Saints, an 18-rated, extravagantly violent and sexually explicit movie, before the stipulated ”watershed” period of 9pm. A suspended fine of R15 000, arising from a previous judgement was also imposed.
The station survives largely on the grubbiness of its output. A year ago the BCCSA issued it with what was a final warning, so it mustn’t complain. You can read the whole judgement at www.bccsa.co.za. The e.tv defence is a real belly-laugh.