DStv, GOtv Face Backlash Over Saturday Routine Maintenance

Readership NG reports that DStv and GOtv users across the country have expressed frustration and disappointment over MultiChoice Nigeria’s decision to schedule routine system maintenance during peak viewing hours on a Saturday, a time traditionally reserved for live football and other premium sports content.

In a notice issued to subscribers, MultiChoice announced that it would carry out routine system maintenance from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Saturday, January 24, 2026. While the company stated that self-service platforms would remain operational, it confirmed that its entire contact centre, including call services, emails, and live chat would be unavailable throughout the maintenance window.
For many Nigerian football fans, the timing could not be worse.

Saturday evenings are widely regarded as the high point of the football calendar, featuring key fixtures from the English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, and other major competitions. With matches often scheduled between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm Nigerian time, subscribers say the maintenance period coincides directly with live games they pay premium fees to access.

Readership NG reports that subscribers have raised concerns that any signal issues, decoder errors, subscription lapses, or technical glitches during this period would leave them stranded, with no access to customer support until after 9:00 pm, long after crucial matches would have ended.

“This is unfair to football fans,” one subscriber lamented. “Saturday is not the day to experiment with maintenance. If anything goes wrong, you miss the match and there’s nobody to complain to.”

Critics argue that a company of MultiChoice’s size and experience should have scheduled the maintenance for late-night or early-morning hours when viewership is significantly lower, rather than during one of the most commercially valuable windows for sports broadcasting.

The decision has also reignited broader dissatisfaction among subscribers who already complain about high subscription costs, frequent price hikes, and inconsistent service delivery. Many see the Saturday maintenance as further evidence of what they describe as poor customer consideration by the pay-TV giant.

As of press time, MultiChoice had not responded to growing calls for a review of the maintenance schedule or offered assurances to football fans on safeguards against service disruptions during live matches.