Contrary to Telekom's criticism: Vodafone takes action against black screeners
Vodafone takes action against black viewers and switches off signals. Telekom had previously accused its competitor of deliberately tolerating black viewers.
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According to Vodafone, the company is taking action against black TV viewers who have not concluded their contract after the abolition of the service charge privilege. “We inform our customers several times, and we also disconnect: If customers use our TV signal, then of course we also want them to pay for it – that is only fair,” said Vodafone Germany boss Marcel de Groot to the press agency dpa.
Switching off television signals is the “very last resort”, explained de Groot. However, it is already being used. With his comments, de Groot contradicts Deutsche Telekom: The competitor had accused Vodafone of not taking decisive enough action against black TV viewers. This had led to disappointing user growth for cable alternatives such as MagentaTV following the abolition of the service charge privilege.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges even accused Vodafone of deliberately tolerating black screeners to prevent them from moving to the competition. The service charge privilege, which allowed the costs of TV connections to be passed on to tenants, was abolished in July 2024. Since then, tenants have had to take care of their TV contracts or join a collective contract.
User growth falls short of expectations
Traditional TV providers such as Vodafone have therefore lost millions of TV customers. However, user growth for services such as Telekom's MagentaTV has been sobering in light of these figures. Telekom sees Vodafone's approach as the main reason for this: although users would no longer pay Vodafone and therefore no longer be included in the customer statistics, they could continue to watch TV as normal.
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Vodafone counters this: Many users would have decided that they no longer needed television at all once the service charge privilege was abolished. According to Vodafone, there are also customers who used several TV services in the past but now only use a single one. “We have lost revenue as a result of this change in the law,” said Vodafone Germany CEO de Groot. “But we are achieving the goals we set ourselves. Because it was clear that the entire TV market would shrink noticeably as a result of this change in the law.”
The Vodafone boss was unable to provide dpa with details on the number of black TV viewers. He also did not want to comment on the number of households to which Vodafone has cut off the cable signal as a result of black TV.
(dahe)
