StarHub Cable TV is an Example why Monopolies are Bad
I just received a letter from StarHub Cable TV this week. They have wonderful news for us subscribers!
…we are pleased to present to you the new Lifestyle Basic Group and a new tier, Basic Upsize. With this new packaging, we hope to extend a wider picking of channels that you will find easy to select and enjoy.
[snip]
Henceforth, Family Plus is no longer available for subscription.
I’ll spare you the details, but in a nutshell they replaced one add-on tier (Family Plus) with a weaker version of essentially the same thing (Basic Upsize), and introduced one new Basic Group that counts towards one of your Basic Groups when you are choosing a subscription plan.
And the good news doesn’t stop there:
In addition, if you currently do not subscribe to a Value Pack or any channel/group on the Digital Add-on Tier, the monthly rental fee of $4.28 for the first digital set-top box will apply. With this and the new channels added, there will be a price revision of $3.21 from your July bill.
So the bottom line is this – Right now I’m paying $38.52 (incl. 7% GST) per month for 3 Basic Groups and the Family Plus add-on tier. After the reorganization, I now need to pay for 4 Basic Groups and the Basic Upsize add-on tier, as well as start paying $4 more for set-top box rental, and I still lose access to at least three channels! (Eurosportnews, Zone Reality, BBC Entertainment, and I think even Boomerang)
So I am paying three bucks more a month, and I still lost value.
And if I insist on paying no more than the $38.52 I’m currently paying right now per month, the way that the channels are newly packaged forces me to drop no less than 8 channels.
Yes, $tarHub is basically saying, “Screw you guys. What are you going to do, drop us for mio TV?”
There are also some sleight-of-hand dirty tricks that $tarHub is trying to screw us with:
- Eurosportnews, once part of the Family Plus tier, now moves to the uber-expensive Sports Group. %$#&!
- Pop quiz: E! Entertainment – one of the most popular channels on cable TV today talking about Hollywood – belongs in which Basic Group? Surely the “Entertainment” group with other Hollywood-related channels such as AXN, MTV, and Star World, right? Wrong! It belongs in the newly created Lifestyle (!!?) group with other obviously-related channels
such as Discovery Science, Discovery Home & Health and the Asian Food Channel. E! is basically anchoring the Lifestyle group, otherwise people will drop it faster than you can say, “money grubbers”.
And how did $tarHub come up with this brilliant new packaging?
We take several factors into account when we select channels for our new Lifestyle Basic Group and Basic Upsize Tier. These include the appeal of each channel, how it complements the others in the group, feedback from customers and our commercial negotiations with the channel provider. (emphasis mine)
Right… like I believe any customer will feedback to $tarHub asking for reduced value at a higher price.
You will never see this happen in a place like the United States or Taiwan, where multiple viable cable TV providers actually have to compete with each other for subscribers. And this is not even counting the alternatives, such as satellite service providers like DirecTV. In Taiwan, the government even puts a cap on how much cable providers can charge (550 NT$ – or about 25 SGD – based on 2006 numbers I can find). And what can you typically get with 25 Singapore bucks per month? Over 100 channels, including premium channels such as HBO, Cinemax, and for those who are interested, even pornography.
In Singapore however, where $tarHub is the only viable pay-TV provider in town and satellite dishes are banned, they can get away with this kind of stuff. Just raise your prices every year (like last year) and laugh all the way to the bank.
(On a side note: it’s as if all the monopolies in the world knows that the world will crumble into financial ruin soon, and thus everyone wants to get their last shot in grab as much money as possible. How else can you explain why despite high inflation and a looming fear of a global recession, oil prices, and now cable TV prices, are still steadily increasing?)
And why does the government allow $tarHub to operate more or less as a monopoly, and not to mention continue to disallow satellite dishes?
Well, you may get all different kinds of answers, such as, “SCV deserves it, since it spent $600 million to cable the whole island”, or, “satellite dishes are a threat to our national security.”
My guess? Well, if you have one cable TV provider, perhaps it’s much less work for MDA to enforce its censorship rules and to dole out its “financial penalties“. 
But $tarhub didn’t cable the whole island. They’re just leasing the cables from Singtel. The only thing that they did cable is the “last mile” within flats. If I’m not wrong, they don’t even cable to landed properties.
And adding on to that – even if $tarHub did spend the money to build the Singapore cable network, under the terms of their original agreement with the government, their exclusivity as a pay-TV provider expired back in June 2002.
If the government really wanted to privatize the pay-TV market and introduce competition, they can easily make the barrier for new entrants low and force cooperation from the incumbent. This was exactly how they eased in M1 and StarHub Mobile into the mobile telecommunications market back in the late 90s.
Notice how the government preaches “free economy” for basically all industries EXCEPT for media-related industries?
You didn’t mentioned that the “freebies” that $tarhub provides will automatically continue UNLESS you call them to cancel !
Same for Cable TV, same for Mobile.
crap !
Oh wait, if you change your plans once too often, there will be an extra service charge. e.g. turning on/off IDD or Caller ID, especially if you travel or for various purposes.
$ingtel ? Did I mention the network unreliability for both ADSL home users and Corporate ? No redundancy. Call Support ? “Thank for for waiting, your call is very important to us….”
Perhaps we should switch to P2P TV.
Well Guppy, like you most certainly are aware – lots of folks are already starting to leverage “alternatives” to TV that are freely available on our wonderful Interweb.
But Shhhh! Some things shall not be further discussed on an open forum such as this one…
Hhm…
stw
there is an alternative: switch it off. We canceled cable almost 2 years ago and (after an initial grief of the little ones) couldn’t discover a reduction in quality of live.
We see the library more often and the local bookstores are also quite happy with our decision.
Unfortunately, I am not as disciplined as you and your family are.
I still need my fix of Discovery channel and some other original programming, which despite the prevalence of “alternatives” on the Internet, are still sadly difficult to replace.
I wish I had your courage to just switch it off…
Does this mean that I will Have to Pay For both the Basic n The Basic Upsize? Do I need to call them to add/Cancel the Basic Upsize Plans?
Wa Coz M1o TV came out $tarhub now wan earn more money… But I like the chnls in $tarhub more… Got better Chnls… At Least have Animax although M1o TV provides Yoyo Chnl[shows anime aso but mostly during e night n mostly anime for kids]… lolx… tis r how companies works… survival of the strongest
Yeah, your Basic Groups are different from your Basic Upsize, and have to pay for them separately. However, if you buy Basic Upsize once, you get “upsized” for all of your Basic Groups, no matter how many you have.
Anyway, if your need for cable TV is primarily for watching anime, I’m sure there are better alternatives out there if you look hard enough.
Yes, I’ve also recently received the aforesaid letter. Totally screwed up my day. Splitting up the same packages so they can charge us more. Pay and Pay.
I still can’t get over the fact that Discovery Science is in Lifestyle and not Education group.
Who the hell made that decision?
You have to realize that $tarHub creates their groupings not because they make sense, but because they want to maximize profits.
The groupings are established to try and have as many people subscribe to as many groups as possible, while keeping each group size roughly the same so you can’t easily drop weaker groups without losing one or two channels that you really like.
lonly no more.
Finally i swicth off the service last week.
From the begining i have the feeling to owne something to them all the time and not enjoy at all the service they can provide. Looks like i need to kneel down to them and say thank you to be there for my needs.
I think they have a wrong meaning of “service provider” for the people.
Also i have arguements with them about increasing price and billing problems with the only final answear is like that, take of live.
I will listen more radio for now on.
Cable has had control for way to long.
Grow up people!!! Look at the cable charges in other countries… Then talk… Otherwise… U know what I mean
Care to share any data points with everyone before asking everyone to grow up?