Earlier in the week, it was reported that StarSat was set for closure in the South African market by 18 September but this never happened as they mention an active presence by on social media and continue selling their decoders. ICASA made the call for On Digital Media who serve as license holders in South Africa to shut their services.
So corporates at StarSat would rather resolve their matter in court which again didn't work out with the company that is engaging themselves in an another ongoing case with ICASA. This whole thing with retrenchment and also loss in consumers to some appears to be desperate attempt at them antagonising the situation.
With the affects of COVID-19 and the current economic climate StarSat was facing financial constraints or as they would put it "owing to challenges in securing new investment in a competitive market". So where was StarTimes in all this as they got TopTV out of financial turmoil and also was ICASA aware of this.
Regardless of how StarSat wants consumers and the media to perceive this they were operating illegally for over a year as their license expired by July 2023 and a new application was filed by November of that year. What might have got ICASA infuriated by all this was the fact they were promoting and distributing a service without a license.
If you drive on the road without supervision or a license you get penalised for that and imagine if you had caused fatal accident the punishment is more severe for the unlicensed vigilante. What's more baffling about this is employees are being left in the dark and blindly serving as accomplices to this whole ordeal.
If StarSat had shuttered its doors by July 2023 and applied for a new license it's likely that ICASA would have granted them a new license. But these things tend to take time which is what StarSat didn't have and by the time they would have gotten one they would have to build their consumer base again which similar to DStv has been under siege.
Another scenario would be the local content viewed on ST Rise and One Freestate Televisual how would the latter survive if ICASA manages to shut down the pay-tv platform while TLC and Discovery Channel can be accessed on DStv. StarSat would most likely have to start these local endeavours from scratch and compared to other players they've been invisible.
Openview launched several years down the line and are close to hitting the 4 million milestone while StarSat has a half a million subscribers. If they are given the greenlit to continue operations one would imagine ICASA fining them millions another with them still operational they could have their signals cut off and imagine how many angry consumers would fold their socials.
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