The nature of a broadcast TV service makes it incredibly difficult to let subscribers choose their own channels, MultiChoice told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n
Nyiko Shiburi, MultiChoice\u2019s group general manager for broadcast technology, said the technology is built to place channels into a relatively small number of groups.<\/p>\n
If you let each subscriber become their own group, this would place more strain on the system than the bandwidth offered by DStv\u2019s satellites could handle.<\/p>\n
For anti-piracy reasons, which are driven by Hollywood studios, DStv constantly has to cycle encryption keys through its decoders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why you sometimes see an error message when you switch on a decoder for the first time when it\u2019s been off for awhile,\u201d said Shiburi.<\/p>\n
If you have to generate content encryption keys for each individual subscriber, this would cause a massive amount of signalling traffic.<\/p>\n
It could take days for a new subscriber to be activated if such individual channel selection were allowed, said MultiChoice.<\/p>\n
Even if the technical challenges are overcome, the larger obstacle to allowing subscribers to choose their own channels is pricing.<\/p>\n
To explain the model, Shiburi compared it to a gym. \u201cYou can\u2019t just pay for the treadmill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Capital expenditure costs are high, so you have to package things in such a way that they become affordable to as many people as possible.<\/p>\n
However, would it be possible for DStv to alter its package structure to look more like some overseas satellite pay-TV services?<\/p>\n
The number of channels groups are roughly the same, but some of them split their premium sport and entertainment channels \u2013 which may then be bolted onto cheaper packages.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice has warned on several occasions that making such significant changes to its package structure will come with consequences to pricing.<\/p>\n
Not all channels cost the same and some licensing costs decrease as the number of potential viewers increase, due to being able to offset content costs with advertising.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that our subscribers want the flexibility of choosing their own channels,\u201d said MultiChoice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, by packaging channels in the way we do into predetermined bouquets, we make the services more affordable for more of our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are always improving choice and flexibility by improving our on-demand services, that is why we are looking at how we can further address that desire on various online platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article first appeared on\u00a0MyBroadband<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n Ever wished you could pay a cheaper DStv subscription just for your favourite channels? Here’s why you can’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":108885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[23511,9152,2163,16921],"class_list":["post-112381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-channnels","tag-dstv","tag-south-africa","tag-subscription"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112457,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112381\/revisions\/112457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read:\u00a0The biggest movie releases in South Africa this week<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"