TopTV was launched back in 2010 by On Digital Media as a rival to MultiChoice's DStv with its own lineup of premium entertainment and sports. Overtime, it had been flooded with debt that it that was on the verge of bankruptcy until StarTimes opted to acquire the company which was met with a lot of controversy.
First for its plan to introduce several pornographic content to some of its consumers and another for the scaling back of local content. As some consumers have seen, StarSat relies in ST Rise to build up it's local offering although it isn't as big of a contender as Mzansi Magic and other local offering are provincial brands.
Now the pay-tv service is set for closure after failing to renew license by July 2023 which was over a year ago and opted to apply for a new broadcasting license by November of that year. In general, StarSat has been operating illegally several employees were unaware of these events and some outlets still continued supplying their decoders.
Their exit from the South African market means that DStv would basically be the only pay-tv service in South Africa while eMedia Investments' Openview platform has competition from PremiumFree and Sentech's DTT. This would also put a damper to the local content conceived on the platform.
After Openview had removed Deen TV this was revived on StarSat as Deen Channel same goes for One Freestate Televisual which expanded to MultiChoice's DStv and only to be shuttered after less than 3 months. StarSat's exit from this market means that these brands have no other means of survival with other brands like Soweto TV viewable on DStv.
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