This is surely a bad start for TSTV Africa.
Many of the subscribers of TSTVAfrica were shocked as the BeIN Sports notified them of illegal viewing of the Europa League match between Arsenal and Red Star Belgrade.
This message appeared during the first football match broadcast of the pay-Tv provider on Thursday, November 2, 2017.
A Nigerian viewer narrated his experience and how the match was truncated half-way into the game.
“This happened right before my eyes. And it is compared only to American wonder in Nigeria. 29 seconds to the commencement of arsenal vs zve match, a message appeared on our screen stating the followings:
“And immediately after this, the screen went blank and there was another message that stayed for a while before TSTV wiped it out.”
Other Nigerians have expressed their viewers on the situation.
The Qatari-based sports company had earlier issued a memo to the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) stating that they have no content distributorship agreement with TSTV; thus, making distributing their contents on its platform an illegal activity.
However, TSTVAfrica denied any wrongdoing and existence of such memo. This put more credence to the question of why TSTV would establish its business in such stormy beginning.
On the incident, TSTV also took to Twitter to explain that its system was hacked by unscrupulous elements and it is working to resolve the issue.
There are many questions to be answered about the operation of TSTV. In the coming days, the option of TSTV as a viable alternative to market monopoly power of DSTV and GOTVwill be validated or destroyed.