Football-loving Nigerians subscribed to GoTV, a prepaid satellite cable service, were frustrated on Tuesday night when multiple channels suddenly disappeared.
It was gathered that the disruption experienced by the subscribers on Tuesday led many customers to demand compensation from Multichoice, GoTV’s parent company, during separate interviews on Wednesday.
Several football enthusiasts watching on cable TV were excited to see their favourite clubs enter the field as the Champions League, a popular event in which European clubs demonstrate their skill and drive, returned on Tuesday night.
However, several football fans, particularly those viewing on GoTV, were unhappy when all of the football stations on the cable service abruptly disappeared.
Our correspondent noted that sports channels like SS BLITZ Africa, SS Football Africa, SS La Liga Africa, SS Select 1, SS Select 2, and ESPN had vanished.
Several other channels, including M-Net Movies 4, ROK, Africa Magic Epic, TNT Africa, Al Jazeera, CNN International, Arise News, TVC News Nigeria, and Channels Television, also went off on Monday and had not been restored as the time of filing this report.
The Intelsat 33e, a geostationary high-throughput satellite serving Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the Asia-Pacific, experienced a severe power failure on Saturday.
On Monday, Developing Telecoms, an online platform operated by a UK-based company, reported that the failure caused a significant disruption, cutting service to all customers.
Our correspondent learnt that MultiChoice is among the affected customers.
Many football fans, eager to watch their favourite clubs in action on Tuesday night, were outraged by the service interruption.
A football viewing centre operator in Ojodu Berger told reporters on Wednesday that his customers were disappointed when they couldn’t watch their teams on Tuesday.
“I’ve never been in this situation before. I use both GoTV and DSTV. On Champions League nights, there are usually many matches, so I use GoTV to show the games that my customers want to watch.
“I was shocked when I couldn’t find any of the sports channels. I thought there might be an issue with the antenna, so I tried changing the location, but the problem persisted.
“I checked the menu for any messages to customers about the disruption, but there was nothing. It was a catastrophe,” Sanjo lamented.
Another subscriber, Adebola Oluwatosin, who identified as a die-hard Real Madrid supporter and demanded compensation from MultiChoice for the service breakdown, described his experience on Tuesday as distressing.
“If I knew something was wrong with them (GoTV), I would stay with my friend who owns a DSTV to see the Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund match.
“I bought fuel because there was no power supply at the time, only to find that all the sports channels had disappeared. I had just paid for a subscription of $13,900.
“They need to compensate us. Since this is a monthly subscription, will they extend the expiration date to account for the days the channels were unavailable? We need answers,” Oluwatosin demanded.
When reached on Wednesday, the company’s spokesperson, Caroline Oghuma, indicated that MultiChoice was trying to restore services for all its customers.
“We are experiencing a temporary disruption in our services due to a technical issue with one of our satellite providers, Intelsat,” she said.
In a statement on X, the cable network apologised for the disruption, saying, “We apologise for the current signal disruption affecting your GoTV service. Our team is working hard to resolve the issue and restore your viewing experience as quick as possible.”
