Play Room's Disappearance From DStv And GOtv In The Rest Of Africa Explained

During the week, it was learnt that MultiChoice would be axing Da Vinci Kids across various DStv and GOtv platforms in Africa within November. Prior to the termination, MultiChoice would be debuting Play Room as new kids channel from Ngwato Nkosi Group in South Africa.

In an enquiry, it was revealed by a rep at Play Room that the channel will "for now" debut in RSA on DStv Channel 300. Consumers outside of South Africa on DStv and GOtv will have to make use of Disney Junior, Nick Jr. and other children's channels for a "similar offering".

As MultiChoice doesn't plan to replace Da Vinci Kids with another children's channel or in this case Play Room as this termination not only affected South Africa but the whole of Africa. Although, a reason for the exclusion hadn't been provided several theories come to mind.

Following Zee Zonke, the first theory that would come to mind would be language allocation. As the channel is confirmed to have "popular animated shows in isiZulu" and this included CoComelon and Akili And Me and something like this wouldn't be familiar in some countries.

Second theory which continues with the first was language switching. For all we know the content would be in English and Zulu with sign language incorporated so maybe the channel will look into adding more languages overtime but I'm not expecting that for South Africa.

The last theory would most probably have to do with costs, MultiChoice is not able to sustain themselves in some regions so much so that you'd have brands like Zambezi Magic covering large parts of Africa as opposed to having Mzansi Magic and kykNET operating in one region.

Considering how much money is being poured onto the local aspects of Play Room, MultiChoice Africa will probably want to filter it down to their budget and another would be them probably looking to launch a separate offering which is aligned to consumers in their region.

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