TStv postpones start date

Nigeria’s latest satellite TV operator, TSTV in a statement released today has announced it will commence full operations by November next month. TSTV had earlier been scheduled to commence operations on the 1st of October.

Managing Director of the company, Dr. Brighe Echefu while briefing newsmen, attributed the delay to the ongoing screening of the firm’s distributors. This was to avoid any possible form of sabotage.

“We had applications from over 3,000 individuals who want to be our dealers, so far we have cleared about 750 of the dealers. We are currently conducting due diligence checks on our dealers. We do not want a situation where individuals posing as dealers buy up our decoders and go dump them somewhere.”

Recall that the Pay TV was officially launched on October 1st with the Federal Government granting it a 3-year tax relief.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who performed the official unveiling of the new company and its products, said the tax reliefs were in line with the Pioneer Status recently granted to the Creative Industry by the federal government.

The minister congratulated the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Dr Bright Echefu, and his team for liberalising and breaking the monopoly of Pay TV in the country.

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He commended the courage of the investor for coming from the Diaspora to invest in his country and for believing in the government’s seriousness about diversifying the economy.

However, he identified contents and the lack of objective audience measurement as major challenges that had retarded the growth of TV and advertising industries in the country.

Earlier, Echefu said for the first time, Nigerians could now enjoy Pay Per View because with TSTV, “subscription runs as you watch and it has the facility to pause your subscription when you travel.

TSTV is a Direct-To-Home (DTH) broadcast service that came to be as a result of a multi-transponder agreement between ABS and Telcom Satellites TV to deliver DTH to Nigeria on the ABS 3A satellite. The service is set to air more than 100 TV channels a first and grow to above 150 with time.