Kwaheri DStv

As 2023 drew to a close, I said kwaheri (goodbye) to DStv. I walked into the Multichoice shop, asked for a GOtv kit (decoder, antenna and accessories), paid for it and the GOtv SUPA+ package, without mentioning anything about my DStv Premium account.

For more than 15 years, I have enjoyed watching the widest selection of sports one can imagine on the SuperSport channels on the DStv Premium package. Excellent picture quality too with the HD decoder for the past 9 years. Having lived in Australia briefly and in the United States of America there is no doubt as to the excellent sports coverage provided by DStv. When there were children in the household, the numerous cartoon channels provided immense competition to the SuperSport channels, in third place were the Movie Magic channels.

Signing up to the Safaricom home (FTTH) internet connection 8 years ago brought much joy and peace to our household, it marked the end of fights about the insane consumption of the data bundles on the Safaricom 4G modem. The FTTH reliable internet connection, initially on a 10 Mbps connection then later upgraded to 20 Mbps, brought even more joy as it opened the door to other entertainment offerings. Netflix, Apple Music, Showmax, Spotify, other Jazz music streaming websites, DStv stream, RugbyPass TV and most recently YouTube Premium which includes YouTube Music. 

The majority of these entertainment options through the internet are direct competition to DStv Premium. The wide variety also resulted in a situation where each member of the household watched what they enjoyed on their own device rather than us all gathering around the TV. As I have grown older, the amount of time I watch sports on TV has reduced somewhat, to about an hour each evening and possibly four hours on Saturday and Sunday. This is partly influenced by my schedule and the knowledge that I can catch up on the highlights of any game or other sports event on YouTube, Twitter or Instagram. 

The increase in the DStv Premium monthly subscription over the years has been significant, by December 2023 it was almost KES 10k. There have also been additional payments, albeit much lower, paid for Netflix, Apple Music and YouTube Premium monthly subscriptions.

The trigger for the move from DStv Premium was however a technical challenge that has frustrated me for many years. The downside to living in a storied apartment building is that the DStv satellite dish is mounted on the roof and connected to the decoder through tens of meters of coaxial cable. The majority of this cable is outside the building, hence it suffers the effects of the sun, wind and rain. Twice I have had to replace all of it. On the odd occasion items have fallen on the dish or someone doing something on the roof will hit it causing it to move and lower the quality of the signal received from the satellite. The technician I call is a wonderful man and very reliable, each time he will fix the problem at hand and my joy with the restored service exceeds the pain of the required payment. 

One however gets tired of the routine of repair, enjoy, problem, repair, enjoy, problem etc. The loss of signal strength as months go by is frustrating. So I kept pondering on a longer term solution. Moving to a house where I can place the dish a shorter distance to the decoder was not an option. So the solution seemed to be a switch to GOtv whose antenna is terrestrial and it can be mounted inside the house. However any mention of this was met with much opposition by the technician and DStv customer care folks. When I made the move in December 2023 it was so easy to do the set up myself. The 55% signal strength I get is more than adequate, the picture quality is good enough, even though it pales in comparison to the amazing DStv HD picture.

The GOtv SUPA+ subscription is a third of DStv Premium. When I add the subscriptions for Apple Music, Netflix and YouTube Premium I am still saving about 40% of what I was paying for DStv Premium. Therefore the recent DStv offer to reconnect to Premium, pay KES 10,500 for one month and get one month free was not attractive.

The introduction of DStv Stream and GOtv Stream shows that Multichoice are well aware of the competition they face. It will only get steeper in the coming months and years. The new Showmax debacle with sports restricted to mobile phones and the backward step with M-Pesa payments highlight how far behind Multichoice are in the internet entertainment space. I had hoped the GOtv Stream would work as well as DStv Stream so that I could watch live sports on my computer when traveling but I keep getting error messages. 

Three months later I am happy with the decision I made to switch from DStv Premium to GOtv SUPA+. There is a better balance between the amount I pay each month and what I watch. That's not to say that I do not miss watching F1, cricket, baseball and more live rugby. But I can find the highlights of these events online when I want to and if I have more time on my hands in the future I may pay for DStv again, but bypass the whole satellite dish and decoder setup if I can and just watch on my computer. Assuming of course that Multichoice can accommodate that.