If you’ve been hooked on The Walking Dead, Law & Order, and Maharaja Lawak Mega on Astro, get ready to pay the piper a little bit more.
From December 1 onwards, the country’s most popular satellite TV provider (by a massive margin) is going to raise its rates for High Definition (HD) channel packages by RM5 – while scuttling several Standard Definition (SD) versions of those same channels.
In an email sent to subscribers, Astro’s chief commercial officer Lee Swee Lin said the rate increase would come with eight brand new HD channels, and with them, a whole slew of fresh programming.
Sounds like a deal for an extra five bucks, right?
But if you’re already on board with some of the more popular shows and channels on Astro’s basic packages, you might have no choice but to either pay extra to keep your HD channels, or add on the HD package if you haven’t already.
The Fox Channel (710), which broadcasts The Walking Dead in SD, was phased out of Astro’s service on November 16 – meaning if you still want to keep up with that show, you’ll have to watch it on Fox HD on 724, which means paying Astro extra.
Ditto for fans of Maharaja Lawak Mega – it’s a HD exclusive on Astro.
The issue of Astro’s rates and increases is something that affects so many Malaysians that it’s been raised in Parliament – but nothing concrete has come out of those deliberations so far.
