TStv to get 3-year tax holiday

TStv Africa, newly launched pay television operator, will get a three-year tax holiday from the government, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, culture and tourism, has said.

All investors in the country will also get tax-free dividends.

The minister made this statement while speaking at a dinner to mark the official unveiling of the company.

NAN reports that TStv Africa is a wholly owned by Nigerian Pay TV operator with refined offerings of novel Unclassified Pay Per View subscription and complimentary internet services.

Mohammed who performed the official unveiling of the new company and its products said the tax reliefs were in line with the pioneer status recently granted to the creative industry by the government.

He congratulated Bright Echefu, CEO of the company, and his team for liberalising and breaking the monopoly of Pay TV in the country.

“The important thing about what Echefu has done today is that he has redefined the pay per view television industry and from today, that industry will never remain the same again,” he said.

“What he has done is to democratise the media and entertainment industry and make it possible for even a peasant farmer to have access to the best entertainment and news in the world.

“It is a great opportunity for me to be the one to unveil TStv because just like a Nigerian made history by crashing the cost of telephony in Nigeria, I am glad that another Nigerian is now coming forward to crash the cost of Pay TV.”

The minister commended the courage of the CEO for coming from the diaspora to invest in his country and for believing in the government’s seriousness about diversifying the economy.

“I want to assure that this administration will continue to assist you and other investors in creating the enabling environment for businesses to grow.

“With the liberalisation of the industry content has become very key because content determines which channels are being watched and which are not.

“Another major challenge is how to get an accurate measurement of which channel is being watched and which is not.

“Kenya and South Africa are about one third of our population but they do much better in TV and radio advertisement than us because of their robust audience measurement.”

Echefu said TStv has 70 premium channels model with the cheapest pay-TV in Africa with a maximum subscription fee of N3000.

He said as a fully Nigerian brand with consideration for the masses, TStv is not classified and it has a model that accommodates subscription as low as N200 as N500 for a period of time.

The CEO said TStv came with PVR (personal video recorder) decoder which allowed viewers greater control over their viewing experience with functions like pause, rewind, forward, save and record of programmes of interest.

Echefu said that once you subscribe to TStv, you will also get complimentary internet service, enabled Wi-Fi, as well as video calls and video conferencing services.