GoTV subscribers, particularly football enthusiasts, were left disappointed on Tuesday night when multiple channels, including sports channels, suddenly went off the air.
According to Developing Telecoms, the outage was caused by a severe power failure on Intelsat 33e, a geostationary satellite serving Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. This disruption affected all customers, including MultiChoice, GoTV’s parent company.
Newsmen observed that sports channels like SS BLITZ Africa, SS Football Africa, SS La Liga Africa, SS Select 1, SS Select 2, and ESPN vanished. Other channels, including M-Net Movies 4, ROK, Africa Magic Epic, TNT Africa, Al Jazeera, CNN International, Arise News, TVC News Nigeria, and Channels Television, also went off.
Football fans expressed outrage and disappointment, criticizing MultiChoice for poor communication. Adebola Oluwatosin, a devoted Real Madrid fan, demanded compensation. “They need to compensate us. Since this is a monthly subscription, will they extend the expiration date to account for the days the channels were unavailable? We need answers.”
Sanjo, a football viewing centre owner in Ojodu Berger, shared his experience. “I’ve never been in this situation before… I thought there might be an issue with the antenna, so I tried changing the location, but the problem persisted.”
Caroline Oghuma, MultiChoice’s spokesperson, acknowledged the disruption. “We are experiencing a temporary disruption in our services due to a technical issue with one of our satellite providers, Intelsat. We are working to restore services for all our customers.”
The company’s efforts to resolve the issue are underway, but subscribers remain anxious for a prompt resolution and clarity on compensation for the disrupted service.
