Calvo Mawela, Chief Executive Officer of pay-television giants, MultiChoice, has explained that the wish of subscribers across Africa to pick only the channels each wants to watch from the packages offered will attract considerably higher costs if the model is adopted.

Mawela, who made this known in an interview on SABC News, explained that the model desired by subscribers “does just not work” and it is the reason why MultiChoice bundles television packages in a few bouquets.

Mawela stated that Canada went through a lengthy regulation change, which compelled pay-television operators to adopt an a la carte model.

The model, he said, has failed because subscribers ended paying more for the same number of channels available to them.

His words: “Today, there is no uptake because consumers end up paying more for the same number of TV channels they are getting today.

“So, it came up to a zero-zero sum where they went through this whole process. What consumers don’t understand is that we look at our research across the market and then what we do is that we bring everybody together with different tastes of content.

“That way, we attract a much larger audience and then prices come down. That’s how we keep the prices down. That will attract a bigger audience because we’ve got children, we’ve got sport, you’ve got movies and all other content that we have.”