Is GOTV illegally charging its subscribers for free to air channels?

GOtv has done away with its Free to Air bouquet, dubbed as GOtv open bouquet, replacing it with GOtv lite where they will be charging an annual fee of Kshs. 1800 effective from May 18^th . Well, probably most of you might not have known about this.

The new GOtv lite bouquet will give users access to free-to-air and 2 additional pay TV channels. However, from what we are gathering, most consumers feel that this should not be the case as the Communication Authority of Kenya already declared that subscribers were not to pay for Free to Air channels.

What this meant is that, If you have a Free-to-Air decoder or a digital TV, you will receive digital signals distributed by distributors that included ADN, Pan Africa Group (PANG) and Signet. Of course, this came after the digital migration tussle between the Communication Authority and local broadcasters that ended with a two-week digital switch off by the three major media houses in January, CA had asked all decoders in Kenya are supposed to offer a Free to Air option.

Through an internal guide seen by TechTrendsKE, the Kshs, 1,800  being charged by GoTv is being referred to as ‘annual administration fee’.  So what prompted the company to increase these charges? It says that it is the changes in operating systems and bouquet configurations that has necessitated the introduction of GOtv Lite, which has replaced the current GOtv Open.

“GOtv Lite replaces Gotv open and the new basic bouquet offering with an annual Admin Fee launched by GOtv. Subscribers will NOT be required to pay monthly fees on the Gotv Lite bouquet. For Ksh. 1800, subscribers will have access to the FAITH and Islam channels plus all available local free television channels.Changes in operating systems and bouquet configurations has necessitated the introduction of GOtv Lite, which has replaced the current GOtv Open.” the company said.

Currently, GOtv sells decoders to consumers for Ksh. 1399 with 2 months GOtv Plus Subscription. Upon expiry, subscribers have the option of Continuing with either the GOtv Plus or GOtv Value bouquet options and pay a monthly subscription or pay a one-off fee of Kshs. 1,200 for the FTA channels. The latter is set for replacement by the GOtv Lite.

Among other refreshed bouquets is the original GOtv bouquet which offers over 21 channels ranging from news and documentaries, lifestyle, music, religion and sport, will be renamed to GOtv Value and GOtv Plus which provides over 40 channels of great family entertainment will remain unchanged. Many subscribers are yet to be informed of these changes and are still using the service with the belief that the GOtv Open package is still as they knew it was before the changes

Below are some screenshots of the complains consumers are making on the GOtv Facebook Page.

Some subscribers were paying the Kshs. 1200 to get their decoders activated to free to air but they were charged an extra Kshs. 600 to get them on the GOtv plus platform, this came to many as a surprise.

Whats your experience? Leave us a comment in the comments section below.