The Walt Disney Company announced plans to shut down its pay-TV channels Fox and Disney Junior in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland on September 30. The films, series, and other programs will transition over to streaming service Disney+.
Disney+ is not available in South Africa as yet but with these new African productions coming. It won't pose much of a shock if we're part of their 2022 rollout.
More markets are closing down their Disney Channels as the CEO announced sometime back the goal is to close 100 international Disney Channels (even highlighted Africa) and they'll continue at a robust rate.
The Walt Disney Company took Disney XD and FOX Life away from Africa with FOX, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, ESPN 1 & 2, Disney Channel and Disney Junior remaining.
Around the closures, it was announced that Disney was doing away with FOX name. We got to see Korea find an alternative name while Latin America renamed it into Star which is a section on Disney+.
FOX Africa has been adding content from Star which signals the possible rebrand. The only reason it might not have changed as yet is due to the Star India channels.
In January 2021, Star India's channels rebranded to Utsav in the UK and parts of Europe while the Middle East, Africa, Singapore and other parts of Europe for some reason experienced that with only Star Vijay which seemingly confirms the new brands rollout in those territories.
Out of all these regions that got Utsav only the UK lost FOX while other markets have yet to join the Latin American counterpart of the channel but one things for certain is that these changes are coming in phases.
With that in mind, could it be possible that Star Life and StarPlus will rebrand into Utsav within the next month or two where one channel is celebrating a birthday with FOX following within two to three months where certain channels were wiped from the face of the earth or at least in Africa.
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If the closures are impending, at least Walt Disney should give Africa Disney + already; which they said they have no plan of launching here anytime soon. So they're closing this channels without a nice substitute here unlike what they're doing internationally
ReplyDeleteI'll accept the Star rebrand, if it means they bring new content from the platform straight to the channel as soon as possible. Not to rebrand and be dormant like the current Fox
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