MultiChoice Nigeria, the country’s dominant pay-television operator, is once again facing the ire of its customer base after a growing number of DStv and GOtv subscribers took to social media and customer care lines to report that their subscriptions were not activating promptly despite successful payment.
Multiple users described a familiar but frustrating scenario: debit alerts confirming payment, followed by hours, in some cases longer, of blank screens and error messages instead of the promised access to their chosen bouquets.
For a company that markets its digital renewal channels, including the MyDStv and MyGOtv apps, USSD codes, and bank transfer options, as fast and near-instantaneous, the reported lag has reignited long-standing frustrations over service reliability.
The latest complaints land against a difficult backdrop for the pay-TV giant in Nigeria, its largest market on the continent.
MultiChoice Nigeria has shed subscribers steadily in recent years; the company’s audited results for the year ended March 2025 showed its Nigerian operation lost 1.4 million subscribers over two years, with the company pointing to high inflation, power grid instability, and fuel scarcity as contributing factors.
That decline followed a string of price increases that drew public anger and, at one point, regulatory intervention: the Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal fined MultiChoice Nigeria N150 million for disregarding an order restraining it from hiking subscription fees and separately ordered the company to give customers a month of free subscription as a remedy.
Under new ownership following its acquisition by Canal+, which took over affairs in September 2025, the company has signaled a shift in strategy, with the stated goal of stopping subscriber losses and returning to growth, including a pledge that there would be no price increase in 2026.
Activation glitches of the kind now being reported threaten to undercut that goodwill push, feeding into a broader narrative among Nigerian consumers that billing systems and technical infrastructure have not kept pace with the company’s promises of convenience.
For affected subscribers, the frustration is compounded by uncertainty over where responsibility lies. Payment intermediaries banks, fintech apps, and USSD platforms routinely note that once a transaction is confirmed successful on their end, any failure to activate service falls squarely on MultiChoice’s own systems, leaving customers to escalate directly to the company’s call centres, social media handles, or retail outlets for resolution, often with no clear timeline for restoration.
MultiChoice Nigeria has not, as of the time of this report, issued a formal statement addressing the specific wave of activation complaints.
Industry watchers say the company will need to move quickly to reassure a customer base it can ill afford to alienate further, particularly as rivals such as StarTimes and emerging free-to-air and streaming alternatives continue to court price-sensitive Nigerian households.
Subscribers affected by the delays are advised to retain proof of payment and escalate unresolved cases through MultiChoice’s official customer service channels.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
DStv and GOtv subscribers are facing activation delays despite successful payments due to a technical/service failure on MultiChoice’s end, not the payment platforms.
This comes as the company is already under pressure from years of subscriber losses and price-hike backlash, making reliability a critical test of its promised turnaround under new ownership.
Affected users should keep proof of payment and escalate directly to MultiChoice customer care.
