MultiChoice Nigeria Marketing Director, Martin Mabutho, does not grant media interview often; but when he does he has something to say.
When GODDIE OFOSE caught up with him during the company’s recent media event, he said if the Nigerian economy would be on its way to be among the top 20 world economies, the government must tackle imbalance exchange rate and poor power supply.
Your assessment of business environment
Martin MabuthoSo far the environment has been very encouraging, the government is trying to make it as conducive as possible. The main concern for almost all businesses has always been the provision of power. There is a privatisation programme currently on the way, and I think everybody is trying to move as fast as they can to rectify the shortages.
There is the issue of regulating the various fraternities and I think our regulator does well because it encourages competition. But you’ll start hearing people calling us a monopoly. I don’t know if the definition of monopoly has changed, because we are definitely not the only player in the market. There are other players doing their own bit to capture their own share of the market.
I think it has been very rewarding as well for us and that is why we have been here for 20 years and plan to move forward to the next 20 years. The Nigerian consumer is very demanding, which also helps keep us on our toes; it helps us to develop our workforce to meet the demands.
The only other problem that one could possibly wish away is the exchange rate, because we pay for our programme in dollars. The more the dollar continues to strengthen the more the naira weakens against it. Unfortunately, it becomes a bit unfavourable and when it becomes unfavourable for us it in turn impacts on consumers.
That is why the cost of goods and services continues to rise. We wish that situation could change. Nigeria is a very good market for us, it is one of our best and biggest markets and we appreciate it.
Things in other markets in Africa where you have worked which are lacking in Nigeria and vice versa
One of the sweetest things that one finds in most of the southern African markets like South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, is the fact that people have subscription running on debit order. So, once you have subscribers up for debit order you know you don’t have people queuing up at the end of the month.
We will like to get Nigerians into that kind of space where they are on debit order and every month they get their subscriptions paid automatically, instead of waiting for them to get disconnected and then come to MultiChoice and stand on a queue, pay and go home and it is not working, you phone and then wait for days. I wish the stress could be taken away and replaced with debit order.
I hope it is time for Nigeria to take up debit order or any other form of alternative payment, instead of going to MultiChoice office.
I don’t know why Nigerians like to come to the office; we have got Paga, PayPal and scratch cards. These are options that people could easily use even inside their homes to reconnect to avoid disconnection. In other markets they are using these channels in large numbers.
That is why the day the World Cup started there were too many people in our office wanting to do something that they can do on their phones.
Why should a customer drive to Lagos Island, get stuck in traffic, and it is raining for hours, just to pay DStv subscription. That shouldn’t be happening. I wish that we are able to switch the mindset of our subscribers and get them to try alternative payment methods.
One thing other markets are not experiencing but which Nigeria is experiencing is obviously the way Nigerians interact. Nigerians interact a lot with us on our fora and social media links, although some of it is mainly to say I have a technical issue.
Nigerians are very vocal and they interact a lot with the brand. So, for that we are grateful and we will like to see that spread through other countries.
The other thing is that we have given Nigerians Yoruba and Hausa programming and it resonates a lot with our market and audience here. Even the Igbo people are saying they want their own channel, which is something we are looking into.
It is good and comforting to see that our contents are being embraced at such level.
Nigeria’s readiness to switch over to digital transmission
The Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) is doing all that has to be done. I am sure you have seen all the fora that have been held, and by the end of this month the big flag off will happen in Jos and after that we will know how the rest of the programme is going to follow.
I think that we are ready; we have been given assurances that the government and the regulators are ready and we are very proud to be partners in it. We have our hands in it, so are other television companies.
It is not something that is going to make itself happen; all stakeholders need to put their differences aside and move with the rest of the world to get Nigeria onto digital platform. So, we are ready.
Difficulties of doing business in Nigeria, apart from the exchange rate
The main one is surely going to be power. If the power situation is taken care of today in Nigeria, people would engage in small businesses such as ice cream, cold-room, and textile would be revamped without the huge cost of diesel.
People will be able to do a lot more and even expand and employ more people. Self-employment will become a reality and that will cut the unemployment rate. Power is a huge problem and as soon as that is sorted out we should be well on our way. If we address the power problem first everything else will follow.
The biggest market in Africa for MultiChoice and why
South Africa continues to be the biggest market for us. Among other things, the distribution channels are much more structured than in Nigeria which is more of an informal market, and this goes across other industries.
In South Africa, there are working rail lines to transport your goods, there is a debit order, there are payment plans. It is better in those ways, and I think one must commend those who do business in Nigeria. Most of all the things that are in place in South Africa and other developed economies you won’t find here but businesses have to continue to fly.
One cannot wait for that infrastructure development to be in place, God knows what is going to happen to businesses. It will be a massive explosion. It is not a secret that Nigeria is growing up and the rate at which infrastructure is coming cannot be ignored.
I believe we came to Nigeria at the right time. The measures of the middle class continue to move significantly; it is your middle class that will drive your economy and keep your lights on.
As more and more people enter that segment, we remain hopeful that better days are here. There is a lot in this market that one can look at, even from our point of view of helping to develop the market.
I spoke earlier about what we are doing with regard to sport development. Nigeria is a figure market, it’s a national figure market for basketball. A lot of people don’t know that, but we are showing the league on TV and we are saying to the world that Nigeria is where you need to be and Nigeria is where you need to put your money and develop these kids for them to make their way into the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Challenges of bringing this World Cup to Africa
The biggest challenge in bringing something as the World Cup is, first, balancing the cost of the rights and increment in our subscription rate. We try to do that within your subscription without shifting the subscription up to say the World Cup has increased our prices.
Second is ensuring that you just don’t take a risk because people could have seen the normal football on terrestrial channels.
We stepped up by living up to expectations or even surpassing expectations and showing people that, as the number one sport broadcasters through SuperSport, we are going to bring the best in terms of anchors, in terms of analysis, and we are going to build the best studio that you have ever seen.
We are going to use the best technology that even those that are abroad, when they look at the way we are packaging these things, will say these people are serious and know what they are doing.
That is the burden, to make sure that our subscribers see it and are wooed to say ‘I cannot watch it anywhere else, it is always SuperSport that will bring it to me the way I want it cooked and packaged.’
We did that on the opening day and you saw the social network a day after and everybody was like, ‘SuperSport set is something else.’ How did we get Ryan Giggs, Jay Jay Okocha, et al? We got all the big names and brought them specifically for our subscribers.
That is the big challenge, making sure that we live up to the challenge.
At what cost?
I will never discuss the cost. It is huge, it didn’t come cheap; because it is in high definition. We’ve got the high definition and the mobile and the online rights.
What MultiChoice has given back to Nigeria, its massive market
We have invested over $50 billion in this country in terms of training people that are in the movie industry, bringing engineers from abroad and from South Africa to help them hone their skills. You can go and check the record.
We have built 300 resource centres aimed at improving education in rural underdeveloped communities. We work very closely with the Sickle Cell Foundation and have over the years supported them to either sensitise people about the disease, or try, at least in our small way, to give out some financial injection into their effort.
Then through our platform people can watch the local football league, watch school kids compete as well as watch basketball. All in all, the $50 billion stands to be justified.