MultiChoice is all about raising prices at the moment. Last week, the group’s lead broadcaster, DStv, hit customers with a subscription price hike — though the blow was softened slightly by DStv’s new “price lock” scheme. We were left with a week and a half to recuperate before the broadcaster confirmed that its decoders had also seen a hike, effective 1 February 2024.
Don’t attempt to decode the broadcaster’s motives
That’s according to a report from MyBroadband, who first noticed the hikes, with DStv later confirming the news. Now, picking up a single-view decoder – with installation – will now cost an even R1,000, but if you’re up to installing it yourself, you’ll be saving R200, making for a total of R800. It’s a rather small hike that’s likely to go unnoticed by most. Just how DStv intended it, by the looks of it.
Unfortunately, we wish we could say the same for the higher-spec Explora PVR and Explora Ultra PVR decoders. Both of these have undergone price hikes worth triple that of the single-view HD decoder, meaning a rise of R300 more than the previous RRP is on the board. For the base Explora decoder, you’ll be paying R2,000 – without installation.
Read More: DStv’s largest price hike in years will hit wallets on 1 April 2024 – but it’s not all bad news
As for the Explora Ultra, it’ll be sharing that R300 hike, coming in at R3,000 – also without installation.
Thus far, neither MutliChoice nor DStv has provided even a simple PR explanation for the hike, not even citing the country’s ever-changing ‘consumer spending’ habits, or the economic pressure that the multibillion-rand broadcaster is facing. Considering the late confirmation of the hikes in the first place (27 days after the fact), it may just remain that way.