In March, MultiChoice announced plans to terminate eMedia's 4 channels on which they were reluctant on retaining its status on the DStv platform for another 6 months but the pay-tv idol already sourced the necessary alternatives which were somewhat bizarre.
Firstly, they just took an existing batch of channels and made them accessible to more consumers as if the higher ups weren't watching those channels and put most of their efforts on channels 101-106 worse is when they left a single channel to fill the void of eMedia's channels.
They also added DreamWorks which has been viewed as a replacement as opposed to a new offering considering the similarities with eToonz shocking was how expensive it got considering how the cheaper offering was ahead. Joining the channel is Movie Room which is somewhat niche from eMovies.
As several consumers had noticed eExtra was the only channel fortunate enough to not get replaced and this was before the announcement of kykNET's Turkish offering on kykNET & Kie that a new Afrikaans lifestyle channel would be making way soon to the DStv platform.
In May which was the same period of eMedia's demise, they had begun tests on this channel and from the looks of it this HD channel had a lot of already viewed content from Media 24's Via which led to believe that maybe this channel was curated for Access customers.
I mean Via hasn't been on DStv for that long I mean they launched around 2013/4 which is almost 10 years but a portion of content can be viewed on the main channel and plus this wouldn't be the first channel to serve as a catch-up.
MultiChoice has a long list of catch-up channels such as Mzansi Wethu, kykNET Lekker, Moja 9.9. and Novela Magic so the idea of Via getting similar treatment doesn't seem far fetched considering how most of these are local channels.
Of course the question that's been bottling up my mind is why the channel hadn't launched as intended. MultiChoice already launched further channels like Hilaal TV, INX Prime and the already mentioned Movie Room but not this Via duplicate.
Could it have something to do with those transponder constraints as they don't have a lot of space for more channels so they often need to remove one to launch another or do they feel that the amount of viewers on Access particularly those watching kykNET Lekker just can't cover it.
Honestly I can see them launch this channel if they aren't planning to make Via accessible to Access consumers as seen Media24's other channel HONEY which is said to be not getting that much attention by audiences which is why it was added to more consumers.
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