You may remember the backlash DStv faced back in March when the company announced it would be limiting streaming to one device at a time. This meant if two family members wanted to watch Liverpool lose to Real Madrid on two screens (for maximum impact), they couldn’t.
There is some good news, though. DStv says it has plans to increase the number of streams allowed per household. It’s not all doom and gloom. Get that chin up.
DStv wasn’t just hurting its lower-tier subscribers when it began limiting simultaneous streams. Every customer on every package was given the same restrictions. Yes, family members could watch downloaded content while another member streamed, but that sort of defeats the point.
Kicking out the pirates
DStv believed it was helping stop piracy by limiting the number of concurrent streams. Multichoice CEO Calvo Mawela said at the time, “We have taken a decision to limit concurrent streaming because we see how people are sharing account details and even selling passwords for DStv streaming.”
“It is unfair to content creators who invest a lot of money to create content.”
After DStv began limiting streams, the company actually saw an increase in DStv streaming subscribers. This growth tells DStv that its decision was the right one. For them, not for its customers.
Despite the strategy working for DStv, Mawela believes that the company can do something about the situation. The company may take the current Netflix route and limit multiple streams to a single household.
“We should be able to get a solution on that to deploy. In the meantime, we did not want this to be an ongoing problem, and we responded responsibly by limiting streaming to one device,” he said.
The MultiChoice CEO did not give any indications of when customers could expect concurrent streaming to return. All we know is that the company is bringing concurrent streams back.
While the strategy has worked for DStv, we sadly can’t say the same for Netflix. The content powerhouse has faced angry fans over the past few months due to this exact same issue. Netflix is testing ways to limit password sharing. It isn’t looking good.
Source: MyBroadband
