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Posts Tagged ‘multichoice’

Multichoice v Very little choice

Some aver-God directs our lives (it is written?), but permits us choices …  correct and incorrect.  That’s far more than offered by Multichoice.

As a DSTV package subscriber it’s a case of having to eat my veggies if I want my dessert … no compromise.

I happen to like watching sport (not ESPN), the crime channel, National Geographic, poker and BBC entertainment.

Yes, of course I can have those; oh goody!

But there is a catch.

To enter my couch potato utopia I also have at my fingertips myriad “musts” such as a Muslim channel, the entire Portuguese network,  umpteen children’s animated cartoon channels, a cacophony of hip-hop, rock and worse, and about 12 self-appointed guru chefs.

To these add Phileas Fogg type travellers beckoning me to exotic unreachable spots, wearying after a few hours and in any case so expensive they are accessible to only a privileged few.

Do I really anticipate the joys of watching six varieties of boring bourses or the news in Urdu or Hindi, Turkish or Greek? Are basketball, gridiron football, horse racing or motor- cross, snow boarding, skiing or inflatable boat racing, pots of gold at the bottom of my DSTV remote?

I think not.

I find “mulltichoice” to be nothing of the sort. Would you frequent a pizza parlour if your hard-earned dough was destined for “the specialty of the house”; take it or leave it? Yes, I can have salami and pineapple, but I must take olives, garlic, feta and anchovies. When I query this imposition I am told “but, you have a choice…”

Am I really alone in wondering how Multichoice have got it so wrong and gotten away with it? Do the two million subscribers about who they regularly boast truly accept their lot without a bleat, or sheepishly grin and baa it?

How many more might join their empire if there truly was choice? Who knows? I’ll leave it to Frank Sinatra, who cooed: “All or nothing at all…”

And to add insult to injury, they break contractual agreements with impunity and have become expensive; they could tailor viewers’ needs and save time, money and exasperation.

A letter arrived telling me the cost of the bouquet (containing so much material I do not seek) to which I must subscribe to enjoy what I really want to watch is to be raised almost 20% without so much of a choice (oops sorry, there it is again…).

Choice is such a precious commodity; a God-given right, no less?

In the case of Multichoice I feel a bit of an oxy-moron!