Why is TV3 and others off Satellite? That is one of the interesting question Ghanaians have been asking themselves and demanding answers for since the world cup began.
After advertising heavily to their viewers about their readiness to show the FIFA 2022 World cup much live on their Channel, all the stations Ghanaians were relying on including myself were nowhere to be found on Satellite.
Well if you are wondering why, this is the main reason as it’s not their fault but Terms and Conditions applied in their hosting rights contract.
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Per FIFA’s regulations, all Ghanaian TV channels who acquired the free to air (FTA) rights to show the world cups matches live, like TV3, JoyPrime, etc have been asked to block the live feed on satellite. This is because satellite goes beyond Ghana, and the FTA TV rights were acquired only for the Ghanaian homes.
Now this means that in Ghana you can only watch the World Cup matches on FTA channels via the terrestrial platform (antenna) or on a satellite platform that is encrypted as this is the only way FIFA can be assured that the matches will not be used outside Ghana.
This is why GTV Sports+ HD, JoyPrime HD and co… are showing the live matches on HD+ even though the channels are scrambled on their SD channels on the satellite (MultiTV). The same applies to any other FTA satellite hosting these channels like Intelsat, Arabsat, Eutelsat, etc….