In this latest installment of Corporate Stories, we are going to tell the story of a young man, who dared to take on a mighty monopoly with his start-up.

The story navigates through the murky waters of corporate competition. It is about displacing a corporate monopoly and the perils of riding that success.

It navigates the intersection between crony capitalism, patient capital and executive exuberance. It serves as a lesson for any self-determined visionary out there who is building a start-up to take on the next vulnerable monopoly.

Defeating the monopoly



“Power is about to change hands,” a newspaper headline read in late 2006.

A week before then, on November 6, 2006 to be precise, a competitive bid was being held somewhere in the United Kingdom. For the first time, a “proudly Nigerian owned” company was about to displace a foreign owned monopoly that had cornered Africa’s largest market for about 13 years.

At stake was a bid for “Territory 70”, a commercial term for the Nigerian market; it was made separate from the rest of Africa by the owners of one of the most valuable content in the world after they recognized the value which demographics portends for pricing its product. Seven Nigerian companies submitted bids, but that night only one was favoured to win nearly 70 percent of the total package on offer. That win, would of course, be to the detriment of the behemoth that was a ruthless monopoly from South Africa.

As the bid came to a grand close, a local startup was set to do the unthinkable.
Nigeria’s HiTV was announced as the winner of Nigeria’s “Live A” for Territory 70, giving them exclusive rights to broadcast Premiership football matches in the whole of Africa, while the “Live B” offer was given to Free to Air Broadcasters in Nigeria and included a single non-exclusive premiership match.

It was a massive victory and the beginning of a new dawn for Nigeria. “Never again, will we allow a foreign monopoly take advantage of our market.”

At the heart of the victory was a young handsome lawyer called Toyin Subair.
His startup, Entertainment Highway Limited “HiTV” had just pulled off the unthinkable and was in a few months about to shift the pay TV dynamics in Nigeria. In his corner, was the Minister of Information and Culture, Frank Nweke Junior, who had promised that as minister, the foreign dominance of premiership rights in Nigeria would be shattered. His vision of seeing a Nigerian company own broadcast rights to premiership in the country was far more important than anything else. This promise was about to be fulfilled and there was no turning back.

Read more at https://nairametrics.com/a-corporate-story-about-how-and-why-hitv-failed/?utm_source=ReviveOldPost&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost

Very nice piece. Long but I took time to read everything. Hitv took a bold step getting the license but they just lacked content. People only watched it on weekends, and weekdays there's nothing to watch. Also during the end of the football season it became very boring, oh and their quality was substandard. Tstv on the other hand are not trying to get the EPL right directly, to be frank getting the right is too expensive and a risk if they can't get the ninber of subscribers , maybe they are trying to get a sub license. Wish them the best.

greenhulk:
Very nice piece. Long but I took time to read everything. Hitv took a bold step getting the license but they just lacked content. People only watched it on weekends, and weekdays there's nothing to watch. Also during the end of the football season it became very boring, oh and their quality was substandard. Tstv on the other hand are not trying to get the EPL right directly, to be frank getting the right is too expensive and a risk if they can't get the ninber of subscribers , maybe they are trying to get a sub license. Wish them the best.

The post is really long actually but it's insightful for almost everyone trying to take up a giant monoploy in business.
HiTV didn't separate signal from noise, their core value is content but they focus on football alone which is actually the noise, but the signal is the content that will unite a family.

TSTV preposition of data subscription with their monthly subscription is like dead on arrival because if a single business should focus on good broadband access to almost all household, they we may forget pay TV and result to streaming. Just like their service is competing with their core value preposition.

I wish them good luck

Habiz:


The post is really long actually but it's insightful for almost everyone trying to take up a giant monoploy in business.
HiTV didn't separate signal from noise, their core value is content but they focus on football alone which is actually the noise, but the signal is the content that will unite a family.

TSTV preposition of data subscription with their monthly subscription is like dead on arrival because if a single business should focus on good broadband access to almost all household, they we may forget pay TV and result to streaming. Just like their service is competing with their core value preposition.

I wish them good luck

I'm not even expecting tstv to keep their promise about the data bundle, I think it's just a gimmick. Getting a 4g 20gb plus pay TV for 3k.. I don't think it's feasible unless they want to run at a loss and crash like hitv. But let's wait and see, unless they are providing some 3g broadband which which will be useless as won't be able to stream anything. And they need to get some quality contents that will entice people. Big brother is one of the main avenue where dstv make their money, that's a show that keep millions of Nigerians glued to their TV.

Football is good to attract customers, but what happenes after the football season cannot be ignored. They should learn from hitv. I think tstv are right not trying to win the premiership right, at least not yet. They should prove they got the content, they should leave they are serious and when they get enough subscribers then they can go all out to get the premierhsip right.

If you want to watch live matches without app visit this link it works http://www.claretwap.com

I just rescanned the ABS 3 W TStv decoder using the *Blind Scan* option

I was pleasantly surprised at these new additional channels that came out

- FashionBox, (11052 H 30000)
-FilmBox Africa,
-FilmBox Arthouse Africa,
-DocuBox
-FightBox and
-FightnFunBox
-TravelXPHD (11098 H 30000)
- Tiwan'Tiwa
- AIT International
- TVC News Nigeria
- TVC Entertainment
- TRT World
- Travel xpHD

These new channels are in addition being added to the over 40 channels in place since October 2017

Nobody seems to know what plans they have in the New Year

Those are all free to air channels na

famozine1:
If you want to watch live matches without app visit this link it works http://www.claretwap.com

Baba aw far, beta dey

TSTV has gone into oblivion? DStv is still king of the Nigerian market. No shaking whatsoever.