During the week, MultiChoice announced yet another fee hike for their Premium to Access bouquets from the 1st of April with DStv AddMovies consumers expected to pay R20 less with Easyview customers enjoying more entertainment at the same price.
DStv Easyview was a heavily disregarded amongst consumers before you had brands like BlackBelt TV, KidsCo and MagicWorld. Basically, something that would give the package some life aside from the usual SABC 1-3, religion and provincial channels.
Close to the rollout of South Africa's free-to-view Openview that value plummeted over the years leading some consumers to explore a number of alternatives as the package lacked a decent entertainment offering, some sports and lastly a watchable offering.
Slowly but surely the value was being revived following the rollout of Real Time which offers the best of HGTV, Food Network, Investigation Discovery and Animal Planet. I wouldn't say Easyview was at its prime during that moment but things were shaping up.
Since last year, Easyview has put themselves in a competitive position with the SABC and e.tv following the rollout of Magic Showcase which comprises of Mzansi Magic OGs while as supplying selected content from Africa Magic, Zambezi Magic and kykNET.
DStv:
- SuperSport might be rolling out a new channel
- Boomerang is the first channel to exit the DStv platform in 2023
- MultiChoice to hike DStv fees from April 2023
- CBS Reality is the only brand to retain its identity in the UK from Paramount and AMC International
All in all, there's more variety going onto that package as opposed to alternatives as seen with eMedia's Openview platform but as seen this past week MultiChoice opted to keep their monthly expenses at R29.
The likely reason as mentioned by them in 2014/5/6, they attempted to hike the subscription and consumers quickly fled the package resulting in the R29 monthly fee. The other had to do with rising competitors such as Openview offering premium entertainment.
But from what I've seen these past years, there has been a growth in Easyview customers although MultiChoice hasn't elaborated on how many consumers reside on the package yearly the likely conclusion is that it's not in high demand.
I mean packages like Access never got this much attention when Premium was still at it's prime now that the package serves as a suitable alternative consumers pay more yearly which is likely the possible outcome for Easyview once it's in high demand.
