SKY Pacific subscribers have signed a petition against Fiji Television Ltd’s decision to change its SKY Pacific channel line-up.
The petition was signed by about 30 subscribers and handed to the Consumer Council of Fiji last week for their intervention in bringing some of the dropped channels back.
“We are complaining to the council because we have been wronged. We subscribed to Sky Entertainment because the advertisements showed we will get FOX Entertainment, Star Plus, BBC and Nat Geo. We paid money for antennae ($399) and some of us have paid subscriptions in advance,” the petition said.
The petition also called for government intervention to direct SKY Pacific to air those channels and compensation for the antennae and emotional trauma.
The group of consumers also called on the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation and Mai TV to step in and provide those channels for viewers.
Suva Point representative David Burness, 78, said they had also agreed not to pay their subscription for August or cancel subscription and demand for compensation.
Meanwhile, the council had requested the Media Industry Development Authority to verify concerns from consumers of misleading advertisement.
MIDA chairman Ashwin Raj said he had requested Fiji TV to explain whether they conducted the wide-scale consultation as they claimed.
“I think they owe it to the members of the public to explain to them why they made the decision to do what they did given the fact that it appears to be an unpopular decision,” he said.
Fiji TV CEO Tevita Gonelevu said earlier they would continue to work with all their international channel suppliers to ensure that all broadcast rights were cleared for all SKY Pacific broadcast territories.
He said the key reasons for dropping the nine SKY Pacific channels were of piracy and territory clearance issues in the Pacific.
“Fiji TV continued to negotiate with FOX International on several optinos including geo blocking or selective picking of channels. However, both parties were unable to reach an amicable decision.
“Fiji TV has made it known to FOX International that once it grows its business, they will certainly work on getting the channels back from FOX International provided that these channels are legally cleared for broadcast into SKY Pacific broadcast territory and it will enhance the SKY Pacific business.
“Fiji TV management made it clear to FOX management that launching into a new and bigger territory with far less channels would not be a viable business decision for Fiji TV.”
Mai TV’s Justin Smith said they could bring those services but first needed to obtain a licence from government to operate the pay-per-view service.
