GoTV subscribers, especially football enthusiasts in Nigeria, were left frustrated on Tuesday night when multiple channels, including sports stations, suddenly disappeared from the satellite service.
The outage caused an uproar among customers, with many demanding compensation from Multichoice, the parent company of GoTV, during interviews on Wednesday.
The blackout occurred just as football fans eagerly anticipated the return of the UEFA Champions League, where top European clubs compete in one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world.
Unfortunately, many fans relying on GoTV were unable to catch their favorite teams in action, as key sports channels, including SS BLITZ Africa, SS Football Africa, SS La Liga Africa, SS Select 1, SS Select 2, and ESPN, vanished from the service.
Several other channels, such as M-Net Movies 4, ROK, Africa Magic Epic, TNT Africa, Al Jazeera, CNN International, Arise News, TVC News Nigeria, and Channels Television, were also unavailable as of Monday and had yet to be restored at the time of reporting.
According to The PUNCH, the disruption stemmed from a severe power failure experienced by Intelsat 33e, a satellite providing services across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the Asia-Pacific.
According to Developing Telecoms, an online platform based in the UK, the power failure occurred on Saturday and caused significant disruptions for all affected customers, including MultiChoice.
Many football fans expressed outrage over the service disruption, while others criticized MultiChoice for its poor communication regarding the issue.
A viewing center operator in Ojodu Berger explained how his customers were disappointed when they couldn’t watch their favorite teams on Tuesday.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this. I use both GoTV and DSTV, especially on Champions League nights when there are several matches. But when I saw the sports channels disappear, I thought it was an antenna issue. I tried moving it around, but nothing worked. There was no message from GoTV about the problem. It was a complete disaster,” said Sanjo, the viewing center owner.
Another subscriber, Adebola Oluwatosin, a devoted Real Madrid fan, demanded compensation for the disruption. He described the incident as distressing.
“If I had known GoTV was having issues, I would’ve gone to my friend’s place to watch the Real Madrid vs. Borussia Dortmund game on DSTV. I even bought fuel because of the power outage, only to find that all the sports channels were gone. I just paid for a subscription worth ₦13,900. They need to compensate us. Since we pay monthly, will they extend our subscription to cover the days we lost access? We need answers,” Oluwatosin demanded.
In response, MultiChoice’s spokesperson, Caroline Oghuma, assured subscribers that the company was working to restore the service.
She said: “We are currently dealing with a technical issue related to one of our satellite providers, Intelsat. We are working to resolve the problem as soon as possible.”
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