HITV Loses 'English Premiership League' Rights to DSTV

Nigeria’s pay TV company, HiTV, has controversially lost the lucrative English Premier League (EPL) broadcast rights in Nigeria to Multichoice/DSTV beginning from the 2010-2011 season kicking off next month.

THISDAY sources said despite paying $40 million for the content value of the first of the three seasons which it won last year, EPL insisted on bank guarantees for the remaining two seasons.

HiTV was given a deadline of last Monday, but, according to an inside source, “the new processes put in place because of the banking reform meant we could not get the guarantees ready by the Monday, July 19 deadline, but we had letters from Nigerian banks which said the guarantees would be ready by Friday (today)”.

However, DSTV announced yesterday that it had acquired the Nigerian broadcast right to the Premiership for the next three seasons.  It held the right until three seasons ago when HiTV arrived on the scene.

Adewunmi Ogunsanya, chairman of MultiChoice Nigeria, SuperSport’s parent company, said he was delighted to have the premium content back on his platform, but said the focus would still remain the growing of the domestic league, a project his company embarked upon two years ago after they lost the Barclay right to their local rival. read more...