DSTV: Of Market And Its Malcontents

By Sanya Oni

You, dear reader already know where the above title was borrowed from. It is straight from Prof Joseph Stiglitz’s acclaimed work with the title Globalization and Its Discontents. Although different in their broad areas of interest, I consider the title apt to underlie what I now perceive as the culture of ceaseless hounding of corporate entities in the guise of consumer resistance.

It was my late Professor Olatunde Oloko’s undergraduate class in the early 80s that Talcott Parson’s functional imperatives first caught my youthful imagination not just as a living concept that underlies the rationale of any organisation but as a critical factor of its survival. Those were the days of starry-eyed, binary Marxian idealism where labour and capitalist were supposedly on polar ends of the societal wealth divide, in which societal progress was measured only by the destruction of the old older and the emergence of the new. Nonetheless, it was also a measure of the profound intellectual honesty of the time that issues were appropriately framed as mere paradigms in what was truly engaging search for understanding the complexities of human evolution.

Today, whereas the fad about Marxism and its strident denunciation of the capitalist appropriation of the ‘surplus value’ has since died, not a few still think that the pre-eminent factor of survival, in maintaining equilibrium should be thrown overboard – no thanks to market malcontents!

So here we are – with my subconscious stirred into the theoretical excursions in the wake of Nigerians latest round of ‘holy’ tirade against Multichoice – since its alter ego – DSTV, announced another upward review of tariff last week. Trust Nigerians in such situation not to take prisoners, hell has literally, been let loose over nothing really!

“The review is unacceptable; in fact, satanic” – I have heard some say moments after – never mind the rationale given by the broadcast entertainment outfit, which is that the forces of economics dictated the move at this time. I heard not even a few whispers that the government ‘do something’ about the obduracy of our ‘insane’ service providers – which they trenchantly mischaracterised as shylock-ism! Over all, the subtle suggestion, and that is in nearly all the submissions I came across, is not just that the Nigerian consumers should have none of it, but that that the government, through the consumer protection agency, should actually find a way to impose a price cap on a private entity so the ordinary folks could breathe!

That is supposed to be the way of the free market economy a la Nigeriana – a clime where although some economic actors of note – from cement manufacturers, to electricity service providers, right up to the retailer next door – have justifiably exercised their rights to adjust product prices, a player like Multichoice is expected to hold things down, with the government – the same apparatus that has a hell of trouble delivering the enabling public good – expected to step in as the enforcer!

Does it bother Nigeria’s outraged company that Star Times has also increased its tariff; or Nextflix? What of Nigerian Breweries Plc that has, this year alone, raised product prices no less than three times, or Guinness and International Breweries that have followed suit. Need I add the airlines, which, caught in the wave of the inclement operating conditions, have also had to raise fares?
I love the way an X (twitter) user @Letter_to_Jack – thanks to Punch – captured the situation: “Electricity tariffs increased: Small rage. Cement prices through the roof: Small rage. Diesel to 1700/L at a point: Small rage. Indomie at 13k = small rage. DSTV increases prices: OUTRAGE! At this point, you’d think DSTV/MultiChoice is the only trigger Nigerians have.”

That is framing the situation elegantly!
Does it matter that the single common denomination in all of these is the intolerable operating conditions which those entities are forced to put up with?

Or is it a case of some economic players expected to find the situation more tolerable than others? Does it speak to anything fundamental that the telecommunications companies also came out last week to say that they too are considering raising their tariffs?
So much for the latest ding-dong between some vociferous Nigerians and Multichoice; the issues, hardly new, merely draws from that same the old but jaded script. Ordinarily distilled, they fall into three parts: the right of a service provider to determine its tariff based on the interplay of internal costs and environmental dynamics; the issue of pay-as-you-go which some see as a matter of value-for-money but which the service provider insists is misconceived; and that it is not technologically feasible under their service model; and finally, the field of play of the regulator in maintaining the sector’s equilibrium. Fully understood, it comes to the fundamental question of whether or not Nigerians would ever allow the same set of cherished rules to prevail for all classes of corporate players.

Let’s start with the first identified issue. I mean the sheer ill-logic of an external body – regulator, parliament or whatever – asserting the right to set the price on a good or service over whose input costs it does control? That would be crazy! Once upon a time, it was Babatunde Raji Fashola who, as minister in charge of housing reminded Nigerians that whereas their quest for low cost, affordable housing is legitimate, there is (as yet) no low cost cement or inputs on the basis of which that legitimate policy ‘construct’ could be formulated! Simply put: like it or not, not only does economics retain its primacy, it trumps everything else.

I actually thought that was hitting the nail on the head! In other words, hate as Nigerians might, of the averment by that distinguished public servant, the policy makers can only afford to ignore the dictates of the market to their peril! That is wisdom.

On the second, I do think that the matter ought to have been settled by now. Thanks to Nigerians love for their love for comparisons; it seems one instance when a service provider cannot be compelled to adopt a model that it deems not feasible any more than Globacom was compelled by the National Communications Commission (NCC) to adopt per second billing system. Competition and technology took care of that. Lest we forget: the clamour for telecoms tariff reduction was roundly rebuffed by President Obasanjo, who, unlike many of today’s hyperactive National Assembly members, understood the danger of staying in the comfy corridors of parliament to decree prices for other peoples’ products!

In any case, no one has yet disproved Multichoice’s insistence that the whole notion of pay-per-view is actually misconceived. I add that the market out there is big out enough for anyone willing to dare.

On the third, ought to be forgiven for conflating the concept of value for money with affordability. For whereas the former could be deemed the province of regulation, nothing of the latter, which involves a strict interplay of market forces and economic decision, and so are quietly easily resolved on the individual’s scale of preference, comes anywhere the sphere of regulation! Most certainly, none could be said to inform the perennial hounding of Multichoice over its legitimate quest for corporate survival. That was perhaps why in 2015, the two public interest lawyers – Osasuyi Adebayo and Oluyinka Oyeniji who had approached a Federal High Court in Lagos to challenge Multichoice’s right to increase tariffs could not have their way since in the opinion of the court, the duo was simply not obliged to use the company’s products!
It seems to me time Multichoice is allowed to breathe.