In 2011, MultiChoice gave an open invitation to Nigerians to get on the digital train and access superior audio-visual quality and top-tier entertainment at reduced costs, when it launched the GOtv in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria.
With its launch, the Digital-Terrestrial-Television (DTT) service platform premiered the advanced DVB-T2 decoders with better digital broadcasting standard, thus fast-tracking Nigeria’s march towards digital migration and technological evolution of broadcast television along with the premium content which it offered.
Since then, the ongoing digital migration has seen an upsurge in pay-TV subscribers in search of quality digital content. The prediction is that pay-TV subscribers will rise to 47 million by 2025, up from 30 million at the end of 2019.
GOtv Nigeria has continued to upgrade its content adding more channels on its packages without significant increase in subscription in comparison to content acquisition and other satellite maintenance costs. This was certainly a necessary business move put in place to satisfy the ever-increasing taste of customers for premium content.
Some of these channels include BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN, sports via SuperSport & ESPN Africa, local & international content respectively from Africa Magic channels, ROK, M-Net Movies 4, TNT Africa, CBS Reality, BET among other channels
Almost a decade after its launch, GOtv signal has gone beyond Ibadan and is now available in several cities in major states of the country, offering different packages at varying price points. Now, all of the packages have been localized and the content tailored exclusively for the Nigerian market.
GOtv MAX offers customers the widest variety of choice with over 75 channels at N3,600 monthly subscription. GOtv Max is the home of La Liga and Serie A. Channels covering documentaries, sports, kids’ content, music, movie channels, cartoons, family entertainment shows and lots more are available on this package.
GOtv Jolli package also guarantees affordable, and exciting viewing across 68+ channels at N2,460 monthly. Though this package has a good number of select football matches on the SuperSport channels, it also offers other entertainment channels ranging from movies, telenovelas, kiddies’ content and so much more.
GOtv Jinja offers over 47 channels at N1,640, mostly for subscribers that are inclined towards local entertainment channels.
With the world becoming more digital, GOtv Nigeria introduced the self-service options to allow customers to manage their accounts without visiting a physical outlet or dealer. With the MyGOtv app, subscribers can clear error codes, check account balances, renew subscriptions, change packages, and update their details.
The toll-free customer care lines and the GOtv social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) also gives them direct contact with the customer care representatives without physical interactions. These self-service options became the most utilized channels at the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown.
The self-service app also gave customers maximum entertainment with additional 100 votes to keep their favourite couple in the Love Pad in the reality TV show, Ultimate Love back in February and on Big Brother Naija Lockdown edition, this was tweaked to give fans additional votes based on their packages to keep their favourite housemates in the competition. Customers on GOtv MAX had up to 350 votes whilst those on Jolli had 200.
The face of digital entertainment has changed completely. It really is now a win-win for all, Pay-TV operators and customers alike: consumers have moved from an era of having limited options to an unlimited space where quality cannot be caged whilst the larger market share now goes to the Pay-TV operator who places the premium on customer satisfaction.