On Tuesday night, a GoTV outage left many subscribers, particularly Nigerian football fans, frustrated as multiple channels suddenly vanished from their screens. GoTV, a popular prepaid satellite cable service, became the center of discontent as the unexpected disruption sparked anger among its users. The interruption of services was most noticeable to football lovers who were eagerly anticipating the return of the Champions League, a major European football competition, but found themselves unable to watch the matches due to the outage.
ULTIMATEBLOG Metro gathered reports from numerous subscribers who, by Wednesday, were demanding compensation from MultiChoice, the parent company of GoTV. The GoTV outage resulted in the disappearance of not just sports channels but also a wide range of other popular entertainment and news channels.
Football enthusiasts, in particular, expressed disappointment as channels such as SS BLITZ Africa, SS Football Africa, SS La Liga Africa, SS Select 1, SS Select 2, and ESPN, which regularly air major sports events, were no longer accessible. Fans who had planned to enjoy a night of football, cheering on their favorite European clubs, were left staring at blank screens. For these sports lovers, the GoTV outage couldn’t have come at a worse time.
In addition to the sports channels, several other well-known channels went off the air, leaving viewers without access to their favorite shows and news programs. Channels like M-Net Movies 4, ROK, Africa Magic Epic, TNT Africa, Al Jazeera, CNN International, Arise News, TVC News Nigeria, and Channels Television also disappeared from the GoTV service on Monday, and by the time the report was filed, they had still not been restored.
Upon investigation, ULTIMATEBLOG Metro discovered on Wednesday that the GoTV outage was caused by a severe power failure involving Intelsat 33e, a geostationary high-throughput satellite that provides services across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the Asia-Pacific region. This satellite suffered a critical failure on Saturday, severely disrupting services for its customers, including MultiChoice, which relies on this satellite for its GoTV broadcasts.
According to Developing Telecoms, a UK-based online platform that reported the incident on Monday, the failure was significant and caused widespread service disruptions. The GoTV outage affected many customers, who were left in the dark without any clear communication from MultiChoice, further frustrating users.
Among those most upset by the situation were football fans, who had been eagerly waiting for Tuesday night to watch their favorite teams compete in the Champions League. The lack of timely information from MultiChoice about the GoTV outage fueled the outrage, with many customers feeling blindsided by the sudden disruption. They expressed their frustrations, stating that if they had been warned earlier, they could have made alternative plans to watch the games.
At a football viewing center in Ojodu Berger, the owner shared his frustration with ULTIMATEBLOG Metro on Wednesday. He explained that his business depends on showing live sports events, particularly on busy Champions League nights when multiple matches are played. The GoTV outage hit his business hard, as he couldn’t provide the service his customers had come to expect.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I use both GoTV and DSTV to cater to my customers’ preferences, especially when there are many matches happening simultaneously. But on Tuesday, I was shocked to find that all the sports channels on GoTV were gone. I thought it might be an issue with the antenna, so I tried adjusting it, but the problem didn’t go away,” he said. “I checked the menu for any message from GoTV explaining the situation, but there was nothing. It was a total catastrophe.”
Another disgruntled customer, Adebola Oluwatosin, a die-hard Real Madrid supporter, demanded compensation for the disruption. He described his Tuesday night experience as unsettling, explaining how he had gone out of his way to prepare for the match, only to be disappointed. “I bought fuel because there was no power supply at the time, and I was ready to watch the Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund match. But to my surprise, all the sports channels had vanished. I had just paid for a subscription of 13,900, and now I can’t even use it.”
Oluwatosin, like many others, raised concerns about the subscription fees they had paid, demanding that MultiChoice either extend the subscription period to account for the days lost during the GoTV outage or offer refunds. “They need to compensate us. This is a monthly subscription, and with the channels gone for days, will they adjust our expiration date?”
Meanwhile, Caroline Oghuma, a spokesperson for MultiChoice, responded to inquiries about the outage. She confirmed that the disruption was due to technical difficulties experienced by one of their satellite providers, Intelsat. “We are working closely with our satellite provider to resolve the issue and restore services to our customers as soon as possible,” she stated on Wednesday.
As the GoTV outage stretched into several days, subscribers continued to express their frustration across social media and other platforms, with many questioning the reliability of the service and the company’s handling of communication during such crises. For football lovers and entertainment enthusiasts alike, the outage served as a major inconvenience, highlighting the dependency on uninterrupted cable services for leisure and business.
The GoTV outage has left a lasting impact on both subscribers and business owners, and the outcome of MultiChoice’s efforts to resolve the situation and possibly compensate customers remains to be seen. For now, the affected customers continue to await the return of their favorite channels and, in some cases, the potential financial redress for the disruption they endured.