Pay TV firms under probe for World Cup outages in East Africa

MultiChoice's DSTV mobile transmission vehicle. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By ELIZABETH KIVUVA

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Three pay television firms are under probe for blocking some regional broadcast channels from airing the 2022 World Cup matches in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) Competition Commission said Multichoice Africa Holdings, Azam Media Limited and StarTimes Group also failed to compensate consumers in the three East African countries for the outage.

“The Commission observed that consumers may have subscribed for the bouquets in the interest to have access to the list of all the TV channels listed in the bouquet, including regional programmes and news. It is also possible that some consumers may have purchased the bouquets specifically to watch World Cup through the affected channels. In this case, the consumers may have been misled by the pay TV service providers in terms of the composition of the bouquet, and this may be in breach of Article 27 (1)(a) of the regulations” the watchdog said.

Article 27 of the Comesa Competition Regulations prohibits persons in trade or commerce, in connection with the supply or possible supply of goods or services or in connection with the promotion by any means of the supply or use of goods or services from giving false or misleading representations to the consumer.

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“Further, when the pay TV providers blocked certain TV channels, consumers may have been inconvenienced and denied access to content that they had pre-paid for. Switching off the channels, which are already paid for may have disenfranchised the consumers, especially where they were not compensated for the loss,” the Comesa agency said.

“This may be considered as unfair and unconscionable conduct towards the consumers and a possible breach of the Regulations under Article 28(1). The Commission’s concern is that the pay TV service providers, to whom consumers had paid their subscriptions, did not offer redress or compensation to the affected customers,” it added.

Article 28 prohibits persons in trade or commerce, in connection with the supply or possible supply of goods or services to a consumer from engaging in conduct that is, in all circumstances, unconscionable.

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The Fifa 2022 World Cup tournament, held from November 20 to December 18, was hosted by Qatar with Argentina piping France in the finals to lift the trophy.