DSTV’s fortress is under stress—adapt or stagnate
Mustapha Bernabas Mugisa (aka Mr Strategy)
Founding Director @ Summit Consulting Ltd| EX-EY| Certified Fraud Examiner| MBA| Author 7 Tools To Get On The Board & Add Value| ACCA Student Award Winner| Board Member| Board & Exec Coach Strategy, Risk & Cybersecurity
DSTV built its empire on a single, expensive moat: exclusive English Premier League rights. That moat is drying up. Alternatives are emerging, and customers love it.? Rising costs force DSTV to hike prices, driving loyal customers into the arms of piracy and frustration. A monopoly on live sports is not a strategy—it’s a liability. It breeds complacency while the real battle for consumers is happening elsewhere.
Netflix and Amazon Prime aren’t storming DSTV’s gates—they’re rendering them irrelevant. Add YouTube and TikTok and you have a big challenge given the ever-reducing cost of data. Home Fibre is driving the uptake of online streaming options at a middle-class household level a primary target of Dstv. Online providers offer flexible, affordable, on-demand content, while DSTV clings to rigid, overpriced bundles loaded with channels no one asked for. Even die-hard sports fans are looking for alternatives—when piracy becomes the more convenient option, your business model is broken.
Take my own experience. In 2024, I only subscribed to DSTV premium in December during the holidays. Even then, it was occasional at best. My kids? They had no interest. They spend their time on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV, where they can choose what they want and when they want, without ads or irrelevant content clogging the experience. I paid a premium for DSTV’s supposed value, but the reality? I was funding a service that no one in my household truly needed. My club, Man U, has been average which has reduced my interest in the premier league.?
DSTV’s biggest problem isn’t competition—it’s the growing irrelevance of its business model. Customers today demand convenience, control, and value. DSTV offers none of the three. Why not offer the option to pay for only one channel of interest? Why not allow pay per hour? Or per day or per channel? That is the technology they must invest in.?
The roadmap to survival
a) Go digital-first – Eliminate the dish. Build a seamless, world-class streaming service with live sports at its core. Give customers the ability to stream anywhere, on any device, with flexible pricing that matches modern consumption habits. The Showmax innovation is a good one. Now they must further invest in original content to cater for the global audience and continue making it seamless. They should be investing in technology that offers Internet as part of the premium subscription.?
b) Break the bundle – Customers hate paying for what they don’t watch. Why force them into bloated packages when all they want is football, news, or movies? Give them the power to choose. Introduce smaller, tailored packages that reflect real customer preferences.
c) Expand beyond sports – Football is seasonal. A business model that relies on exclusive sports rights is fragile. Invest in compelling original and local content that keeps subscribers engaged all year, not just during match season.
d) Become the aggregator – If you can’t beat Netflix, make them part of your platform. Integrate streaming rivals and own the ecosystem. Offer a single subscription where customers can access Netflix, Amazon Prime, its own Showmax, and DSTV in one place. If DSTV doesn’t do it, someone else will. The options continue to increase. TikTok itself is a game-changer. People love to see themselves, and there is no better place than TikTok to see the creativity of your friends and their friends in its purest form!
The verdict is clear -- DSTV’s monopoly mindset is a death sentence. Reinvent the business or watch the subscribers—and the profits—vanish.
Mr Strategy.?
Michael leverages accounting and finance, audit, strategy planning and execution, business development, governance and risk and project management skills to drive enterprise value creation and transformation.
3 天前Great perspective. The Golden years of DSTV are fading fast. Its offer and pricing tagged to US$ was always distress spend like filling up gas.
Chief Executive Officer, Pentad Insurance Brokers Limited
3 天前I can’t even remember when I stopped subscribing to dstv…long long time ago! It’s still there????
CSMP?, M.ISMI? Strategic leadership I People and third-party contracts management | Policy, strategy and, security plans | Integrated security technology designs l Security and investigations management
3 天前"Customers demand for convenience, control and value but DSTV offers none". But you got motivated to pay for what you don't demand as a customer for the whole year well aware of it? When did you get to know what you demand as a customer before your paid for this service?
Finance Director
3 天前You nailed it, Mr. Strategy! This is similar to the famous story of a young elephant kept on a rope for so long that even as it matures, it still allows a weak rope to control it, lamenting its problems while blaming the man, the rope, and the tree where it is tied. For companies facing similar issues, now is the time to cut the rope, uproot the tree, and chase the man away to access more fresh grass, water, and fruits—the customers.