Kate Henshaw’s Post And The Everyday Abuse Of DStv Subscribers -By Isaac Asabor

Kate Henshaw did not write an essay. She did not convene a press conference. She did not threaten litigation or regulatory action. She simply asked a question through her X handle born out of exhaustion: “How does a customer pay for an annual DStv subscription and still get cut off repeatedly, for no reason, only to be forced to call customer care to restore a service already paid for?”

That short post struck a nerve, particularly to this writer, by virtue of being a Journalist that covers Consumer Affairs beat for a national newspaper, and also because it exposed something Nigerians have normalized for far too long, the everyday abuse of DStv subscribers.

This is not abuse in the physical sense, but a quieter, institutional one: neglect, disrespect, indifference, and the casual violation of a basic service agreement. DStv has perfected a system where customers pay fully but are served partially, complain loudly but are heard faintly, and remain trapped in a cycle of frustration with little hope of redress.

Kate Henshaw’s post, no doubt has remained spectacular to all her followings on X platform, not because she is famous, but because she posted the truth millions live with daily.

In any sane service economy, payment confers rights. You pay, you receive. You don’t beg. You don’t plead. You don’t chase the provider to activate what you already bought.

But DStv has inverted this logic. Subscribers pay upfront, sometimes monthly, often quarterly, and increasingly annually, yet still find themselves treated like defaulters. Screens go blank without warning. Error messages appear mysteriously. Access is withdrawn arbitrarily. And the customer is left scrambling to “fix” a problem they did not create.

The insult is compounded when the burden of resolution is placed squarely on the subscriber. Call customer care. Wait. Repeat yourself. Reboot. Refresh. Reset. Wait again. This is not service. It is coercive inconvenience.

An annual subscription, in particular, is supposed to eliminate friction. It is marketed as a convenience, a commitment, a guarantee of uninterrupted access. When such subscriptions are repeatedly disrupted, it raises a fundamental question: what exactly is DStv selling, content or confusion?

If DStv’s technical failures are frustrating, its customer care experience is infuriating. The phrase “call customer care” has become synonymous with wasted time. Long queues. Dropped calls. Agents reading from scripts. Little ownership of problems. No escalation. No empathy. No apology.

Subscribers often leave these interactions more annoyed than when they started. The problem may eventually be fixed, but the emotional damage remains. Time is lost. Energy is drained. Trust is eroded.

What makes this unforgivable is repetition. The same issues recur. The same complaints resurface. The same apologies , when offered at all, sound hollow. DStv has had years, not months, to fix these systemic problems. The fact that it hasn’t speaks volumes.

Customer care, in DStv’s world, is not designed to delight or even satisfy. It is designed to manage anger, delay resolution, and wear customers down.

DStv’s frequent and unexplained disconnections have become so common that many subscribers now see them as normal. That normalization is dangerous.

When customers begin to expect poor service, the provider has already won, not through excellence, but through exhaustion. People stop demanding better. They adapt to dysfunction. They lower expectations.

There is rarely advance notice of disruptions. No proactive messages. No real-time explanations. Just silence, until outrage spills onto social media.

Kate Henshaw’s post shattered that silence. It forced DStv’s everyday failures into public view. And it reminded subscribers that what they endure is not normal, acceptable, or inevitable.

DStv’s service culture cannot be separated from its long-standing dominance of Nigeria’s pay-TV market. For years, it operated with minimal competition and weak regulatory pressure. That environment bred comfort,  and comfort bred contempt.

Price increases became routine. Service improvements lagged. Complaints were brushed aside. The company behaved like a landlord dealing with tenants who had nowhere else to go.

Even when alternatives emerged, streaming platforms, internet-based services, smart TVs, DStv did not fundamentally change. Instead, it leaned on habit, infrastructure gaps, and the slow pace of transition.

When public figures like Kate Henshaw voice frustration openly, it signals that the company’s grip on goodwill is loosening. When everyday subscribers echo that frustration, it signals something deeper: a legitimacy problem.

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of DStv’s conduct is how it strips customers of dignity. Subscribers are made to feel small, like they are inconveniencing the company by demanding service. Like they should be grateful when reconnection finally happens. Like the company is doing them a favour. That mindset is toxic.

DStv is not a charity. It is a commercial enterprise. Customers are not beggars. They are the reason the business exists. Any company that forgets this fundamental truth eventually collides with reality.

In fact, the leadership of DStv needs to be told that silence is not accountability. The reason for the foregoing view cannot be farfetched as DStv rarely explains itself. It rarely takes responsibility. It rarely compensates customers for downtime. Even when service is disrupted for hours or days, subscriptions are not adjusted. Refunds are unheard of. Credits are rare. The assumption seems to be that customers will absorb the loss quietly. That silence is part of the abuse.

In more mature markets, service interruptions trigger automatic apologies, transparent explanations, and compensation. In Nigeria, DStv behaves as though such standards are optional. They are not.

At this juncture, it is germane to opine that Kate Henshaw did not just complain for herself. She became a stand-in for millions of subscribers whose voices rarely travel far. Her experience, paying annually, being cut off, calling customer care in frustration, is not exceptional. It is routine. What made it powerful was visibility.

For once, DStv could not dismiss the complaint as an isolated issue or a “technical glitch.” The public reaction exposed a pattern, one that has defined the company’s relationship with its customers for years.

DStv still has a choice. It can continue business as usual, issuing generic responses, fixing problems only when they trend, and relying on customer fatigue. Or it can confront the truth Kate Henshaw’s post laid bare. That truth is simple: Nigerians are tired of paying fully for services delivered halfway.

Given the foregoing, it is expedient to remind the leadership of DStv that meaningful reform would require reliable subscription management systems, automatic reconnection without customer intervention, and proactive communication during outages, genuine customer service training and compensation for unjustified downtime.  Anything short of this is cosmetic.

Kate Henshaw’s post was not an overreaction. It was an overdue mirror. What stared back at DStv was not flattering: a company that has grown too comfortable mistreating the people who sustain it. A brand that confuses customer loyalty with customer captivity. A service provider that delivers content but withholds respect. In fact, the everyday abuse of DStv subscribers thrives on silence. That silence has been broken.

The question now is whether DStv will listen, or continue pretending that blank screens and angry customers are just part of the Nigerian experience.