MultiChoice’s choice

Quick Fire 🔥 with Jennifer Abah

Explain your job to a five-year-old

I make sure customers have a great time and a wonderful experience.

What did you want to become when you were young?

At one point, when I was really young, I wanted to be a zoologist; I must have gotten the idea from a cartoon. And then at another point, I wanted to voice cartoons. When I grew older, I really wanted to be a radio or TV presenter.

What’s something you wish you knew earlier in your career/life?

You are not a tree, you can move. Forget the fear of the unknown and shoot your shot at a new job when you are no longer learning or earning (enough) at your current one.

What are you reading these days?

Subtitles on Netflix.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received in your career?

Two things: 1. Blow your own trumpet 2. Don’t be afraid to ask for things (e.g. a raise at your current job or a salary expectation that is 3 times your current salary when you’re asked during an interview); the worst they can say is ‘No’ and you won’t die, but if you have been blowing your trumpet well enough before the ask, you’re more likely to get it.

What’s the most ambitious goal you’ve ever set? Did you accomplish it?

The most ambitious goal I have ever set was to increase my income by 10 times. I have not gotten it yet but I am very confident I will.

Jennifer is a Customer Experience Lead at Bamboo

Clubhouse? No – Greenroom

It seems, these days, we only hear of Clubhouse when it’s time to talk about a rival clone. We really should change that.

But just this one time, Guess who just launched their own rival live audio app.

Spotify 🎉 and it’s called ‘Greenroom’.

This isn’t shocking though. In March, Spotify announced that they were acquiring the company behind the app Locker Room to help them enter the live audio playing field.

So will this be for just Spotify premium users?

Nope. According to Greenroom’s FAQ, you don’t even need to sign up to Spotify. You can just download the Greenroom app and start listening on conversations. Spotify users can login with Spotify if they like.

So what’s different with this one?

Not too much, you can be sure. Greenroom has a lot of the features we’ve come to know and love on Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Reddit, Telegram, Linkedin (at some point) – did I miss anyone?

Here’s where things could be exciting for creators, there will be a Greenroom Creator Fund. A post on the Spotify for Artists blog reads “Through the fund, you can get paid for creating compelling live content and building your community on Greenroom. Payments to creators are primarily based on consumption of your live content and how many people are tuning in to your rooms.”

Read more about Spotify’s Greenroom.

MultiChoice says no

In October 2020, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) proposed a number of changes to South Africa’s TV licences as it battled with revenue collection.

One of those changes demanded that pay service providers like Multichoice (DStv) and video on demand providers like Netflix collect TV licences on behalf of the SABC.

And today, MultiChoice is having none of it.

On a recent call with investors, MultiChoice group CEO Calvo Mawela said, “Our position is very clear. We can’t be held responsible for collecting money on behalf of a government entity. The government entity itself needs to find a way to collect such monies.”

But really why can’t the SABC collect it themselves?

Well, they have been trying but things aren’t looking too good. Only about 2.5 million of 9.5 million TV license holders have paid for these licenses.

In money terms, of an expected 3 billion rand that the SABC expected to receive, it only received about 791 million rand. That’s only 26%.

So what are they proposing?

It would be expected for DSTV, Netflix and services like theirs in South Africa to include the TV license fees in the bills they send to customers.

MultiChoice has some reasons for why they will not be accepting this proposed change. One of them is the fact that the SABC is technically a competitor and it shouldn’t be able to make them collect money for them.

Read more: MultiChoice fights back against plan for DStv to collect TV Licence fees

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