Joseph Hundah, managing director, Multichoice Nigeria, since assumption of duty ten months ago in Nigeria has rolled out initiatives aimed at consolidating DSTV’s position in Pay-Tv business.
He spoke to Chike Onwuegbuchi and Hilary Okeke on his achievement and other industry issue

What is the situation as regards the broadcast rights of the Fifa U-17 world cup?
I just sent a text to confirm from the CEO of SuperSports, but as far as we understand it, SuperSports has the exclusive pay-TV rights for the U-17 world cup. As to who has the free-to-air rights, I am not too clear. It is likely that AIT has the exclusive free-to-air rights. That being said, a situation whereby a free-to-air station has a pay-TV business, what they ought to do is when that particular match is being played on their free-to-air platform under the pay-TV network, they are supposed to blank it out and replace it with something else. They are not supposed to offer any service on their pay-TV platform that shows the games. We hope that they understand the limitations of their rights and comply with the rules. But I am not confirming that they have the free-to-air rights – I do not know. But as far as the exclusive pay-TV rights are concerned, we definitely have it, no one else but us in Nigeria.
What is the difference between Free-to-Air and Pay-TV?
Free-to-air is any television service that you receive without paying for subscriptions. All you need is the traditional antenna outside your house that picks up the signals and delivers the programmes to your television sets. Stations like AIT, NTA, Silverbird, are all free-to-air platforms; the subscribers do not need to pay them to provide that service.
What is the situation of your agreement with the Nigerian football Federation?
That is very much ongoing. In fact, we are looking at increasing the number of games that we show on the Nigerian Football League. We have invested so much money there. You might be aware that we actually acquired two outside broadcast vehicles some time last year. One is based in North Central part of the country that services the northern part of the country; the other one is in Lagos and services the southern part of the country. For us, we are very happy with the agreement; it is going on very well. Though there are problems as regards changes in fixtures sometimes, but it is something we are overcoming and I think it is a learning process. So, that is okay by us. We have commitments from the minister himself, as well as the DG of sports that they would continue to assist us in making sure that we are able to cover those games and all the issues that may come up along the line would be properly taken care of.
What are the security arrangements in protecting broadcast equipment from errant fans?
We take security very seriously. As you know, outside broadcast vehicles are worth millions of dollars. We take the safety of the equipment and that of our crew members at the venue very importantly. But so far, we have not had any serious incidence concerning our crew – we take precautions to ensure that all is safe wherever we are because any damage to equipment would affect the video coverage of the matches.
How would you assess your 10 months in Nigeria as MD of MultiChoice Nigeria?
Well, it continues to be a learning process. I learn new things everyday – about the market; about our new products; about how we can make it easier for our consumers to enjoy the products that we offer. It has been a success so far. We have grown significantly over the next 10 months and we continue to grow. We have added new channels on the bouquet and we continue to do so. As I have said before and reiterating now, we find it pleasant to increase access of our services to everyone and go as far around the country as possible. We are putting a lot of money into expansion; increasing our visibility among our subscribers, making it easier for them to pay their subscription fees. As we speak, almost 60 percent of our payments are made outside of our branches. There are new technologies coming up, like mobile banking. We just recently launched ATM banking; you can now pay your subscriptions on the ATM. We continuously look at innovative products. In the next 2 or 3 months, we would be launching high definition personal video recorder (PVR) to replace the one we have at the moment.
What are you doing about the cost of acquiring hardware for your services?
Note that all decoders are imported. With the 27 percent depreciation in the Naira, the fact that people can still buy the decoder at the same price is highly commendable. But all these fluctuations make it difficult for us to reduce our prices. However, it is something that we are looking into and for me, not only is it important for us to increase accessibility geographically, it is also important for us to increase accessibility monetary wise. So, it is something that we are kind of investigating – we want to find ways of reducing the entry level into our products.
What have you done in terms of content for your northern Nigeria subscribers?
We are opening a branch in Maiduguri in the next few weeks, and content has been our focus. I agree with you, content has to suit the market. There is not much Hausa content out there, but we are looking at giving them something that would suit them better. Just as before, we have launched Islamic channels, and we are seriously looking for ways to include Hausa movies on Africa Magic channel. We would constantly try to look for different ways of harmonizing our provision in the North because of their culture, and we would like to fit into them. Certainly, how to increase the level of content that suits that particular market is paramount in our minds.
How possible is it for you to share your rights with other players within the industry?
We have never been closed to doing transactions in partnership with other players in the industry. For every pay-TV operator in the world, including Nigeria, exclusivity is the most important element of our business. The moment you have a service or product that can be seen on other platforms, it becomes less attractive for your own platform because people do not need to subscribe to yours as against other s. So, all these kind of nuances are quite important in serving the market and we are not completely closed to it. If we are presented with a proposal like that, we would try to consider it and see if it makes business sense.
What lessons can be learnt from GTV’s experience?
If you look at most developed markets in terms of television, they do not have more than two or three direct-to-home (DTH) pay-TV operators. It is quite a few places where you do not have many pay-TV players because that is the nature of the business. It is an extremely capital intensive business, it requires a lot of investment over a long period of time. For us, we only started making profit about 5 years ago – after 10 years of pumping money into content and technology. The reason for that is that the cost of rights is extremely high. One has to be in it for the long haul, it is not a quick profit kind of business. It requires a long term view and approach. When acquiring rights, do not overpay for them. Part of the reasons why we did not acquire EPL for example, was because the cost of the rights was too high, even though our business has reached a certain developed level. So you can imagine – GTV came along and paid what we thought were extremely high fees. That put pressure on their ability to develop other channels and content. Pay-TV is not about one product; it is about offering an array of channels. That is why it is called the multi-channel platform. It is about offering different kinds of options for a subscriber to be able to enjoy. You also have to understand that when you start a business, you have to market. So you could have high marketing cost, high programme cost – you need a big budget to survive, and also note that it would take some time for profit to start rolling in.
What are your strategies for staying afloat while the economic crunch continues?
To be honest, we have absorbed the full impact of the Naira depreciation onto our bottom-line; we have no choice. We just have to absorb all of it. When times are tough, people ask you to reduce your marketing, which is strange. Quite often, people tend to curtail their business when times are tough. But we are saying no, and trying to expand our business during these tough times. At the same time, making sure that whatever money being spent is rewarded with profit.  In an extremely competitive environment, it does not make sense to start cutting down on your expenditure, marketing and programming because your competitors are going to start investing in those and  pretty soon, you would find yourself out in the streets. So, we are fairly aggressive in that aspect; we are fairly aggressive in our expansion plans, our marketing and in acquiring our rights that have been lost. We are not going to rest until we get those rights back. We are going to bid for EPL rights as high as we possibly can. It is always regretful to lose any content that you have. We are certainly not going to leave any stone unturned in terms of acquiring those rights back. If we are not able to at some point, what can we do? But we would always try to put our best foot forward. Unfortunately, it is a tough time for everyone.
Does digitisation pose a threat to your business in terms of losing market share?
It is a two-pronged issue here. We think every country needs to go digital because that makes more sense. But it does offer a competitive test because you now have a multiple channel environment on a free-to-air basis. We strongly believe that our superiority is not just about gaining channels – there are many channels out there. There is a perception in the market that there are not enough channels available for other people and that is why HiTV and Daarsat have not been launching. For us, what matters is how you package, market and sell these products. I guess that is where we have an edge. I think that if we maintain our business strategy and our leadership role, our business would be sustainable and we would continue to grow.