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wetbenang
at
Thursday, May 17, 2007
HIKES HERE, HIKES EVERYWHERE
As expected, as soon as the 15 sen per kg price hike of flour took effect on Monday, roti canai sellers everywhere now want to increase the price of their ware by 10 sen.
So in the near future, your favourite Mamak restaurant or stall could be charging you 90 sen for a piece of this delicacy.
They say the 10 sen hike is justified, as not only has the price of flour gone up, the prices of other ingredients of roti canai, like cooking oil and margarine, have too, not to mention the rising costs of everything else.
Make sense? I don’t know. What I know is, it doesn’t take one kg of flour to make one piece of roti canai. So, you do the calculations lah.
An immediate random poll by a local tabloid found out that the majority of the public does not mind the hike, like they did not mind the new subscription fees Astro announced a few weeks ago.
I don’t know what income brackets these people interviewed by the tabloid belong to, but obviously their opinion could not possibly be a true representative of public sentiment.
Talk about Astro fees’ hike, I read this interesting commentary, buried deep in today’s NST’s Tech & U section.
Astronomical hike in paid TV
By Lim Yeh Ern
Astronomical hike in paid TV
By Lim Yeh Ern
From unmarked squatter houses to the high-rise condos throughout the nation, it’s not uncommon to find that familiar Astro grey satellite dish pointing up at a cant angle to the heavens. It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that such high ratio of subscribers to the only paid channel service spells monopoly.
With the newly launched satellite, Astro also introduced several new channels, but just when you thought you were getting more value for your hard-earned cash, in comes a letter telling you that there’s going to be a price increase to your existing package next month and that the new channels will only be free until end of August 2007.
Astro’s excuse for the hike has ironically been live telecasts of football matches – isn’t that the biggest money spinner for Astro in the first place? And if that’s so, shouldn’t the price hike only affect the sports package?
With the US dollar pegged lower, shouldn’t we be getting cheaper movie packages instead? What really gets me are the advertisements, be they those corny Astro advertisements or annoying third-party advertisements. It's advertisements galore all the way. Isn’t this already a paid service?
Astro’s tagline should be Making Astro Richer. How is it making our life richer when we pay for the service and then have to watch advertisements which pay Astro again at the same time?
If the paying customer gets a ringgit for watching every advertisement, we would have paid the difference at the end of each month just to watch Astro.
The letter continues, “We remain committed to make significant investments to bring high quality and engaging local and international programmes to you”.
Define high-quality. Image quality is so poor Sony has to come up with an image enhancement technology for their LCD TVs specifically for Astro channels. And what about improved reception with that new frangled satellite? I’m still stuck at home without anything to watch whenever it pours!
Short of unsubscribing, I guess existing subscribers are just going to have to make do with less channels and make it obvious that they don't like being taken for a ride.
Exactly my sentiments...
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Wetbenang
new astro rate by September? Gosh.. I don't even watch the new channels...
Xis said...
8:41 AM
Astro announced it several weeks ago -- it was all over the newspapers. Not many people made noise. I guess our consumers are a compliant lot.
wetbenang said...
3:24 PM
cis. I bet they were the ones yg sponsor operasi banteras dvd haram yg mebantu wa ada life...
just to paksa wa tengok Astro movies haprak 40 kali.
Ming, my friendly supplier kini jual kasut adidas ciplak sebab tak leh juai dvd lagi. kesian Ming...
now to have the "pleasure" of watching rerun movies, i pay more... dah la ada yg dah rerun 10 tahun!!!!
and betul angin mat2 tu! satellite tak water proof ka? astro should provide papan congkak to subscribers.. masa hujan main congkak..
Crabby - Temasek Born Malaysian said...
5:54 PM
Thats what happens with monopolies. I remember once there was another company trying to establish cable TV serupa astero. I think they got squished before they can even step out from their front door.
On price hikes...I wonder how much a roti canai would cost in say...10 years from now?
RM5?? RM10??
I know its painful but I guess the progression is natural, with shrinking resources or rather increased consumption versus output. My dad says when he was a kid, red 1 cent can buy a meal.
**sighs**
Anonymous said...
6:01 PM
Yup. Monopoly. And bloody Asstro keeps on adding channels that don't make sense to me.
FYI, I have just reduced the number of packages that I subscribe to. Instead of having to pay RM104.95, I now pay RM88.95 a month. Still, it's quite a lot of money, especially when most of the time it's the TV that watches me...
wetbenang said...
12:07 PM