When two Elephants fight

There's plenty of football to go around with just 10 days to the African Nations Cup so on my return to bloggin duties, let me drift in a diferent direction.
Okay, I'll admit there is a bit of football to it (no be there my garri dey? LOL), but it is essentially more than that.

Its the fight for the contents of my wallet by DSTV and HiTV, two of the major cable TV providers in Nigeria.

As Africans, we all know the saying that whenere two elephants fight, its the grass that suffers. Well, in this case, its a bit of both. Some parts of the grass are suffering, the other part is having a ball.

But down to the nitty gritty. I want to do a comparison of these two and I am going into this because a friend of mine was in my house recently and saw me using both and asked if I could recommend HiTV on the basis of my usage.

My answer was to tell him in similar words, what I am about to post here.
I got my DSTV a long time ago, so I am going to keep initial costs out of this, even though I got my HiTV at the total promo cost of N25, 000 (frankly, I wouldnt have bought it otherwise).

Another reason why i decided to add HiTv is because I found out that cost-wise, I was spending about the same, or even more more money than the subscription fee going to see games at bars than I would if I just pay the bloody subscription.

Reason is because I usually take energy drinks when I go out, and the least I pay for one of those is N400. Over a 90 minute spell, I end up with between 3 and 4 cans. A N1200, over a one-month period, I would have been set back about N4800 in a month. An this is not counting fuel for my car, etc.

Back to the comparison.

DSTV subscription is N9500. HiTV is N4000.

DSTV has over 60 channels, plus about 20-odd audio channels.

HiTV has 15 channels, out of which one (Hi-Sports 2) only comes up at weekends. So that makes 14, abi na 14 and half.

Of HiTv's 15 Channels, Sky News, BBC news and E! are also avialable on DSTV.

Hi-Mix is the equivalent of DSTV's Series Channel, and loses hands down.

Hi Nolly is their own answer to Africa Magic. I dont watch Nigeria home videos but my wife, and one colleague in the office are afficionados, and they swear by Africa Magic.

Infact, because AM is a no-go area for me on my DSTV, I set the HiTv to Hi-Nolly for them. But they all refuse to watch the Hi Nolly films and prepare to wait until I am out to work and then dig into Africa Magic.

So, on the basis of second hand experience, I would say DSTv again takes that one.
Nigezie is a Nigerian music channel and would be said to be the alternative to Channel O. I would call that one a draw, even though Channel O offers a wider range of quality content

Hi Kids has nothing on the DSTV equivalents.

Hi Soccer and Hi Soccer 2 are HiTv's flagship channels as they carry the English Premier League that has made them top competitors with DSTV'S SuperSport.

But in answer to that, Supersport have claimed other leagues and now have matches for the UEFA Champions League (a real biggie), French Ligue 1, the English FA Cup, the Carling Cup, the Portuguese League, Serie A, the Nigeria Premier League and a major competition like the African Nations Cup (another major body blow for HiTv).

What this has done is to split the market. Where DSTV enjoyed a monopoly in the past with the EPL and other properties, HiTv is left with just the EPL, the Spanish La Liga and selected UEFA Cup games.

As for picture quality, DSTV is infinitely better than HiTV.

I have also experienced serious issues with my HiTV decoder in that it scrambles frequently and has to be switched off and turned back on at the mains for it to start working properly again.

A friend with close relations to HiTv told me that the problem was that they had a lot of substandard decoders supplied to them and are working to replace them. He advised me to go back to my dealer and exchange the old decoder for a new one. So far, I havent done so, yet. But I plan to.

In summary, I would say that for my money's worth, over 80 channels of quality TV at N9500 is a better deal than 15 channels at N4000.

Some may say I am saying this because i work for a company with close affiliations to DSTV. Guilty as charged, but the bottom line is that facts are facts.

Which reminds me, can someone please explain this statement 'Not every fact is the truth'

Thats a HiTV line in their radio commercial and I dont know if I am slow, but I cant for the life of me, fathom what that implies.

As far as I know, fact are facts. Simple. And a fact can be twisted to suit a context, but a fact has got to be true, o therwise it is not a fact.

I mean, doesnt the very nature of a 'fact' make it true?

Anyway, like I said, unless you are a real English Premier League fanatic, there is really little reason to dump your DSTV for Hi TV.

You are better of doing what I did. Keep your DSTV, and use the HiTv to supplement it, on weekends for EPL games.

Thats what I told my friend.

Good news for me now is that I am off to the ANC in a week, and wont be back until February, and since no one at home will be interested in soccer, I dont have to pay any subscription fee for nearly two months.

Last weekend was FA Cup weekend, so I had my footie dose from SSport.

By the end of the EPL season in May, I wont have to pay again for another two or three months until August, so I get the best of both worlds.

Now you know.