MultiChoice ripped away e.tv from neighbouring countries leading more consumers to pirate the bulk of content with an Openview or eVOD to watch the bulk of content available on the channel while South African consumers will only lose the channels by the end of May.
eMedia Investments engaged with the Competition Tribunal regarding their agreement with MultiChoice for these channels. As some consumers have noticed, some of their channels have been performing remarkably well even on bouquets like Premium and Compact.
Money wouldn't have been the root of their misery if MultiChoice learnt to play the cards right. According to several reports, before they could bundle more channels eMedia Investments was making close to half a billion which was reduced following the additions of these channels.
Another incident involves eNCA and the defunct Afro Worldview, eNCA is the most watched news channel yet Afro Worldview made more than them. When interrogating MultiChoice, they only responded to say that they have less news bulletins.
So you can literally see where all this anger is coming toward, eMedia hopes to see their continue on DStv and for MultiChoice to agree with their demands.
MultiChoice seems more affirmed with their decision to scrap the channels as they've sourced out several new channels which can be viewed as replacements in South Africa such as DreamWorks bulking a lot of eToonz and the upcoming movie channel.
The initial plan was to scrap 4 channels and leave 1 channel on each package: KIX (DStv Access and Family), PBS Kids (DStv Easyview) and DreamWorks (DStv Premium, Compact+ and Compact). As mentioned, MultiChoice intends to launch another movie channel.
The movie space on DStv has been overcrowded on the basis of American films for which MultiChoice is trying to reduce considering how repetitive the offering can be. If anything, the channels that have a better shot on DStv would be eExtra and eToonz.
I get eToonz has a duplicate but the channel's world doesn't revolve on DreamWorks as there's other content like Power Rangers, Pokemon and Ninjago and the recent live-action series. On top of that, MultiChoice won't be using most of the channel numbers in the kiddies section anytime soon.
Akilli Kids exists in East Africa on eToonz channel number while Ghana Learning and Edu TV occupy channels 315 & 316.
For eExtra, it's not entirely about the programming but the same issue as eToonz - channel number. Some parts of Africa have channel 195 with the relevant one Televista being the equivalent of the channel in those regions.
For the rest of Africa, e.tv was spotted in i-Plate section and I don't want to rush into conclusions but there's been cases where MultiChoice cancels a channel and yet comes with a complete schedule in that area usually because it exists elsewhere.
To be honest, I kind of thought the channel was done for in Africa as the SABC once supplied a handful of channels in neighbouring countries through an agreement with MultiChoice before it got scrapped and if this channel were to return then I guess miracles do exist but it remaining exclusive to South Africa is not far fetched.
eMedia Investments battle with MultiChoice is set to reach its climax next month. As mentioned, eExtra and eToonz do seem like the ideal channels to remain onboard but I'd hope to see eMovies onboard on top of the offering it's also floating in the same boat as the other two in channel numbers.
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