Following an article we published yesterday on GOtv, the now shut low cost pay TV has issued another statement partially explaining the blackout. We now know that GOtv was shut down because of unspecified shareholding issues.
The latest GOtv statements says GOtv is a joint venture between MultiChoice Africa, DAE and state owned Transmedia corporation. However, an article in the Herald published a week after the GOtv launch in February 2013 says “the shareholding structure of GOtv is 60 percent to MultiChoice, 30 percent to the Government through Transmedia while Skynet has a 10 percent”.
We are not sure at this point if DAE is Skynet, the local franchisee of MultiChoice Africa.
Here’s a full release from MulticChoice Zimbabwe over the issue:
GOtv once again apologises for the service interruption on GOtv and appreciates our subscribers’ patience with this matter.
On 31 January 2014 GOtv transmitters were switched off without prior notice to the management of GOtv, MultiChoice Africa or GOtv subscribers.
GOtv stakeholders have, jointly and individually, been in discussions with the regulatory and government officials in order to resolve the situation. These discussions relate primarily to the shareholding in GOtv. No agreement has yet been reached on the matter.
Unfortunately this is something beyond our control. However we will continue to engage the relevant authorities in order to have the GOtv signal restored as soon as possible.
GOtv is a joint initiative of MultiChoice Africa, DAE and Transmedia, pursuant to a shareholders agreement which was signed between the parties. This is in line with the GOtv model of public private partnerships. GOtv was launched in February 2013 by the Ministry of Information at an event in Harare.
The GOtv service is a viable and sustainable service. It has already been successfully launched in 9 countries, and has enjoyed tremendous customer appeal. The growth of the service in Zimbabwe was also quite promising – with good growth coming from a limited coverage area.
The rollout of the service was on track, and was rendered unavailable due to issues beyond our control. The rollout plans remain on track, and we would be able to increase coverage and subscriber take up as soon as a decision is taken to switch the service back on air. Unfortunately, this decision is not in our hands.
The matter is still under discussion, and, although it is out of our hands, it is our hope that the service will be back up soon.
In the interim, and in order not to disadvantage our customers, GOtv is offering all active subscribers compensation of $75 or a DStv single view decoder, together with one month DStv Access.
We have started sending SMS notifications to subscribers advising them when to bring their GOtv decoder, remote control and antenna to MultiChoice Zimbabwe, Avondale. The compensation process started on Wednesday 26 February 2014.
More updates to follow as we gather more information.
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Gotv is giving us problem in remo ogun state, we are not enjoying it at all, there’s no signal at all.