Discovery channels face axe from StarHub over payment row
Discovery has declared war on StarHub after accusing the pay-TV network of refusing to pay “fair value” for its channels.
The American broadcast giant, which owns the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Eurosport, said the Singaporean telco is preparing to pull all its content on June 30 owing to a disagreement over carriage fees.
In a heavily-worded statement issued today, Discovery said it had asked StarHub to “pay the equivalent of a cup of coffee per customer per month”, but that negotiations between the two parties had fallen flat.
Speaking to Mumbrella, Discovery’s general manager for South East Asia Shavkat Berdiev said: “We have been trying come to an agreement for a while now. However, unfortunately the fees they are proposing for what we have are very different and are something we cannot agree to.”
Berdiev was unable to reveal how much the carriage fees for the channel portfolio or what the network’s ratings currently stand at in Singapore.
However, he added that the bulk of Discovery’s revenue in the market came from the carriage fees rather than advertising revenue, which he described as being “low” on payTV in Singapore.
The Discovery statement in full said:
“For more than 20 years, Discovery’s brands have informed and entertained Singapore viewers with the highest quality content about the world in all its wonder, diversity and amazement. In Discovery’s recent negotiations with StarHub, we have unfortunately reached an impasse as StarHub is not prepared to pay fair value and have announced their decision to cease transmission of all 11 Discovery channels on their platform. All we are asking for is the equivalent of a cup of coffee per customer per month. We have a responsibility to now take the extraordinary step of informing our viewers that they may lose all the Discovery channels they are paying for on StarHub.
“After June 30, StarHub subscribers will no longer be able to watch Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Discovery Science, Discovery Asia, Eurosport and Setanta on both StarHub TV and streaming service StarHub Go, should a resolution not be met.
“Discovery’s expanded lifestyle offering – with the recent addition of HGTV, Asian Food Channel, Food Network, and Travel Channel to our portfolio – will also no longer be available on StarHub platforms after August 31. Discovery currently makes up a crucial part of the StarHub English PayTV space and dominates Lifestyle with its channels comprising a significant portion of the offering.”
In a thinly-veiled dig, Discovery made a point of noting that a number of its channels would still be available on StarHub’s rival Singtel TV.
In Singapore, Discovery claimed its channels reached more than 1.3 million viewers in 2017 and had experienced a 10 per cent rise in ratings despite acknowledging “a downward trend in overall English pay TV”.
Currently, the network’ counts Fast ‘N’ Loud, Running Wild With Bear Grylls and Cooking For Love among its most popular shows.
StarHub has since responded to Discovery’s claims with their own statement: “We are in renewal negotiations with Discovery and we are doing everything possible to arrive at a deal which would allow Discovery and StarHub to continue our partnership while offering our customers the same content at a reasonable pric”Our customers are our top priority and we are working hard to ensure that they can enjoy an uninterrupted viewing experience. Concurrently, we are acquiring fresh replacement content in the event that negotiations prove unsuccessful.
‘If we are unable to agree on a renewal, the seven Discovery Networks channels will cease transmission on 30 June 2018 and we will announce the launch of several new channels to ensure our customers will continue to enjoy access to a good range of education and lifestyle channels. This will be carried out in the coming weeks. We assure customers that we remain committed to providing them with a comprehensive range of quality content across genres.
“We value all our customers and we appreciate their business. While we continue to negotiate with Discovery, we would like to show our appreciation to all our customers by offering them a free preview of 28 channels over five genres from 11 June to 15 July 2018 to thank them for their support.
“We look forward to sharing more details on this matter in due course. Once again, we thank our customers for their patience and understanding.”
Pulling off the same stunt as what they did to Sky a couple years ago. Bullies.
ReplyStarHub is just a sham. They overcharge customers for content and have seen their subscription base eroded over the last 18 months with the likes of Netflix and Primevideo coming into the mix. Discovery’s selection of channels are some of the most informative and popular and it would be such a shame to see the go. I pay over $150/ month for StarHub TV and it is really not worth it if I don’t get access to Discovery content. For those kinds of prices, they should be airing the Fifa World Cup for free to all their subscribers as well. They’re taking all customers in Singapore for a ride.
ReplyWho even watches discovery channel these days?
ReplyBy “a cup of coffee” do they mean Starbucks coffee or the hawker centre/food court coffee? Makes quite a lot of difference…
ReplyThis is Discovery Channel. They probably drink $50 cups of coffee and think everybody is able to afford their crap content. No loss – My kids get better education from Wikipedia than them.
Not to mention their absolutely childish and unprofessional rant about not not getting what they want is like a great lesson to my kids about how not to write public statements.
ReplyTheir blackmailing tactics of encouraging viewers to spam their provider’s Customer Service hotline simply reeks of unprofessionalism and is tantamount to harassment. It’s like something only fly-by-night attention-seekers would try and is quite frankly embarrassing coming from an organisation with their supposed brand name. They’re acting like a childish brat who’s crying and throwing toys out of the pram when unable to get what they want.
They couldn’t get a deal done professionally on the negotiation table, and now they expect their viewers to do the dirty work for them whilst playing the victim? Lowdown, underhanded hypocrites.
ReplyI had to terminate starbut TV due to the increased in subscription price over the years. I subscribed to their starhub Go for better value.
Reply[Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines], either you guys pay up or watch us turn in our boxes. Starhub is so expensive already but people pay it to watch shows we like on Discovery. With Apple TV and others now, prepare yourself to lose even more customers if you take away what we all signed up for.
ReplyI have spoken to Starhub at length about this. I discovered that despite losing all discovery channels including HGTV and AFC – they will not adjust my monthly bill. What a joke, stRhub is a [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] vendor. If I rent a flat and then the landlord tells me I cannot have use of one if the bedrooms and a bathroom I would expect to either move out with no penalty or a major reduction in rent. When I gave this analogy to Starhub I just got a ‘yoh will not receive any adjustment due to loss of service or chanbels’ Get lost Starhub!
ReplyI agree with the comments. I saw the message on Starhub screen that they will cease to transmit HGTV and AFC and I rang the number. They also told me that even though the ‘education’ and ‘lifestyle’ packages I had would be really affected (meaning I would lose more than 70%) of the content I currently pay for, they would not adjust my bill. So I pay for a service I no longer get and content I don’t have access to??? Ummm…If I had not called the number I would not have known this. Time to cancel my Starhub subscription and move to Singtel.
ReplyWhat shall I say? The typical Starhub scam. Reduce service but don’t adjust consumer‘s bill… This is just rubbish. They already added more and more advertising to their Pay TV channels, which is just a rip off on its own. Now this shite. Either StarHub comes up with a solution or I will simply end my subscription. I’ve had it with this revenue centric company. Get dictionary and look up consumer centric and service focused!
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