By Abubakar Yunusa
On February 24, MultiChoice Nigeria announced an adjustment in the cost of its subscription packages for DStv and GOtv users. The new price review came almost a year after the company last adjusted its rates for customers.
Since MultiChoice’s previous price adjustment, Nigeria’s inflation figure, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has majorly stayed north of 30 percent, debilitating businesses and individuals. The pay-TV firm kept the subscription dial fixed despite the rising production cost nationwide. Until February 2025, nearly a year of holding the dam and painfully keeping the flood and gloom of Nigerian economic realities out of its relationship with customers.
The removal of the petrol subsidy in 2023 has left the country reeling from its impact. The increase in petrol price spilled over to other aspects of the economy.
A few months later, the government also floated the naira, and the currency plunged by almost 200 percent. Businesses could only count their losses as operation costs rose, coupled with other underlying economic woes. Companies were forced to review product prices to reflect economic realities.
According to SB Morgen (SBM) Intelligence, a geopolitical research firm, the prices of some edible products hiked significantly in 2024. Several goods cost twice as much as they did a year before.
Between 2023 and 2024, the cost of a 50kg bag of rice soared from N33,000 to N60,000 — over 82 percent increase in the price of the staple food item. A carton of Indomie Superpack instant noodles soared by 91 percent during the same period from N7,900 to N15,000. Other household and health goods, like sanitary pads, zoomed over 100 percent.
In early 2024, Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc increased the price of its major alcoholic products thrice. The brewer cited “rising input costs and the need to mitigate the impact” as the reason for the price adjustment.
Other brewers, such as International Breweries (IB), producer of Trophy lager, and Guinness Nigeria Plc, had to reconsider their product prices in response to economic demand.
In the entertainment sector, Netflix, the over-the-top (OTT) media service, also increased the prices of all streaming packages twice in 2024. One of the streamer’s bundles climbed by a whopping 83 percent.
Also, StarTimes Nigeria, the pay-TV operator in partnership with the federal government, hiked its subscription package by 15 percent.
Telecommunication companies and Internet service providers are not exempted from the struggle. Starlink, the satellite internet service, owned by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, bumped up the monthly subscription prices in Nigeria. The lowest subscription tier increased from N38,000 to N75,000 per month – a 97.37 percent hike.
In 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) approved telecommunications companies’ 50 percent tariff hike.
Despite the inevitable factors, familiar critics protested the changes when MultiChoice eventually announced its latest rate increase.
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) resumed another episode of the same old dance with MultiChoice.
On February 25, the FCCPC summoned the pay-TV firm to defend the price adjustments before its investigative panel and demanded that MultiChoice halt the planned adjustments.
A few days later, FCCPC filed charges against MultiChoice for not suspending the newly announced prices for its packages while waiting to appear before the commission’s panel.
FCCPC said MultiChoice was “violating” regulatory oversight. However, a federal high court restrained the commission from taking administrative action against the pay-TV company while the case was still in court.
Similarly, the house of representatives, the country’s lower legislative chamber, also ordered MultiChoice to halt the price adjustment.
Despite the objections, MultiChoice Nigeria maintained that its prices needed to be reviewed because it operates within the country’s market forces and is not immune to the economic challenges faced by several other businesses determined to navigate the dire situation.
MultiChoice’s trade is premium show business, and its live wire is high-end content and entertainment. Customers in Nigeria are billed in the local currency, which is becoming increasingly weaker against its global competitors. Foreign currencies are the determinants of licensing deals and the general production of major international programmes.
Therefore, the cost of acquiring TV rights to broadcast live top European football league matches and licensing deals to air trendy shows and films to the Nigerian audience has skyrocketed.
Since the devaluation in 2023, the naira continuously fluctuated between marks below N1,500/$. This constant bounce caused companies to suffer ruinous foreign exchange losses.
MultiChoice Nigeria was one of the victims. In 2024 the cable TV company suffered a $190.5 million foreign exchange loss due to the naira’s volatility. Between April and September of the same year, the company also lost 243,000 subscribers across its DStv and GOtv services as the currency situation forced Nigerians to tighten their shoestrings.
MultiChoice had to reevaluate its pricing structure to remain competitive in the broadcasting industry and consistently offer international events and shows to subscribers.
Despite the losses and shrinking bottom line, MultiChoice remains the largest producer of original content on the African continent.
Last year, Amazon Prime, the global streaming giant, laid off staff and scaled back its investment in African content. The platform retreated from the African market to focus on Europe.
A few months later, Kunle Afolayan, ace producer and actor, revealed that Netflix had hinted local filmmakers at a potential reduction in the volume of content licensed by the streaming service.
Contrary to its competitors’ moves, MultiChoice continued to bet on the Nigerian market.
New exciting Nigerian shows are still commissioned and funded through its African Magic channels. Evergreen TV dramas like Tinsel have been running since 2008, and over 4000 episodes have aired.
With the annual Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA), the pay-TV company maintains its significant role in Nollywood’s growth by hosting the industry’s most recognised prize-giving ceremony.
The production of the last two seasons of the Big Brother Naija reality TV show injected at least N5.5 billion into the Nigerian economy annually.
In 2021, before it adopted a new controversial research methodology, the NBS had pegged Nigeria’s unemployment figures at 33.3 percent – the country’s highest ever.
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