The Pacific Broadcasting Services or PBS office is closed with no executives or staff at work to explain why many of their Pay TV channels is out of service although they have received money for it from customers.
Over 300 customers have called the Consumer Council of Fiji to lodge their complaints while one has lodged a complaint with the Commerce Commission of Fiji.
The Chief Executive Officer of Consumer Couuncil, Premila Kumar said the Council has managed to find out that the United Broadcasting International TV operating from Australia which provided over 80 channels to over 20 countries in 12 languages also provided some channels to PBS. She said UBI closed down on 8th June and the PBS disruption coincides with the closure of UBI.
She had a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of PBS, Simon Fong earlier this month however she said he did not at any time say anything about the closure of UBI.
She said PBS even stopped taking any payments from its customers from last Friday and many of the PBS customers who paid for the whole year do not know what to do now.
PBS has two shareholders which are City West Centre in Australia and Ba Provincial Holdings which is the major shareholder.
Meanwhile, many calls made to the PBS CEO’s phone remain unanswered. We are currently trying to speak to Ba Provincial Holdings.
According to Kumar, there are 5,000 active PBS TV subscribers.
Story by: Sneh Chaudhry
