Friday 16 November 2012

Why I Hate Astro

There goes Astro's excellent uninterrupted and often repeated "Services currently not available" show again,and it only drizzling,right now,and I pay RM125 to watch a blank screen,whenever it rains. WTF is wrong with Astro,even their often repeated programs/ shows are not available when the sky turns dark,

Free Malaysia Today reports that Astro's profit margins remain under pressure from escalati
ng content costs, accounting for some 30% of the revenue and over 50% of the operating costs,therefore Astro is not ruling out a potential subscription price hike to pass on some of the costs to viewers.

When just one company controls a particular market segment, it’s called a Monopoly. And nothing says monopoly better in Malaysia than cable TV operators Astro. Only when companies compete, consumers win. Usually with cheaper prices and better value, think about the hypermarkets and how they slash prices like crazy to pull-in customers.

Of course with Astro, there’s no such thing as competition for them cos their only competition is free-to-air TV,(RTM,TV3,NTV9) government controlled spin TV stations which might as well not exist at all.

I’ve been a bill-paying customer of Astro for close to 10 years, so I think I have earned the right,hence the reasons why I hate Astro:

I now pay double in fees for the same package I have subscribed since day one. Remember, more channels does not mean more value; I can only watch one channel at a time.
Astro always cite the rising costs of programming globally when increasing their prices. Why not pass on these costs to advertisers rather than us consumers?
Sometimes it feels like I am paying to watch ads. There are way too many ads for a subscription-based service.
The programming is much left to be desired. Repeats after repeats of old programmes. If you’re a fan of Jamie Oliver, you know what I’m talking about.
Absurd packaging of channels. Only one or two decent channels in a package. The rest is garbage. Why not let us choose the channels we want, individually?
Rain, solar interruption and sometimes even when it’s just very cloudy; you get the very familiar “services currently not available” message.
Even the 45-mins of watching a live football match is littered with on-screen running tickers, cross-promos and ads. My 32-inch TV is often reduced to a 21-inch!
The Box Office packages are a rip-off. They often show old, B-grade movies on regular movie channels and charge a premium for decent movies.
I’d probably have more luck getting an appointment with the prime minister than getting hold of someone on the other end of their customer service hotline.
They say Tutor TV helps school children learn better; but in actual fact they are just turning kids into TV addicts.

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