A fresh report has it that the removal of Emmanuel TV by MultiChoice, owners of DStv and GOtv, was based on mutual agreement.
There had been speculations in the social media space that the channel was delisted in the aftermath of a damning documentary by BBC, on the life and times of the founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, Pastor TB Joshua, who died in June 2021.
According to a report by TheCable, a senior member of the church who revealed the details, said the church received two letters signed by MultiChoice West Africa CEO, Mr. John Ugbe, in 2023, warning of the poor performance of the channel and impending removal.
The source revealed that officials of the church consented to the removal of the channels via a letter to MultiChoice, dated December 22, 2023.
“Last year, we got a letter dated 7 August 2023 from MultiChoice Nigeria Limited regarding the channel distribution agreement between MultiChoice Africa (Proprietary) Limited and Emmanuel Global Network South Africa entered into on 29 October 2015.
“The letter was signed by Mr John Ugbe, the Nigeria CEO. He said the metrics of all channels on DStv and GOtv platforms are monitored by the Multichoice regularly and that Emmanuel TV was performing poorly.
“This was not surprising, to be honest. The moving spirit of Emmanuel TV was Pastor Joshua and since his death, things were never going to be the same again.
“MultiChoice said it expends considerable resources in terms of satellite and DTT capacity and subscriber management to distribute channels. As a result, only channels which maintain minimum performance standards are carried on their platforms, according to the CEO.
“Multichoice wrote to us again on 7 December 2023 saying that they had concluded the reassessment of Emmanuel TV’s performance between 7 August 2023 and 8 November 2023. They concluded that the channel had not met the 90-day improvement targets and would be discontinued effective 17 January 2024,” the source said.
According to the official, Emmanuel TV responded two weeks later, precisely on December 22, 2023, requesting termination “by mutual consent”.
It also said the wording of the messages to subscribers should read “Emmanuel TV Channel Exit” and not “Emmanuel TV Channel Termination”.
On December 19, 2023, MultiChoice sent an SMS to subscribers to notify them that Emmanuel TV would be discontinued.
In the SMS sent to its DStv customers, MultiChoice said: “Dear DStv Customer, please be advised that Emmanuel TV (DStv channel 390) will no longer be available from 17 January 2024 at 10.59. Please, visit dstv.com to check our latest content line-up.
Emmanuel TV was finally removed from both broadcast platforms on January 17, 2024, after a final performance review.
The BBC Africa Eye documentary accusing Joshua of rape, torture, and forced abortions was aired on January 8, 2024.
Dipo Olowookere