Clarification About TLC Africa And TLC South Africa (Formerly Discovery TLC) On DStv

TLC is a female skewed entertainment channel operated by Warner Bros. Discovery that offers a mixture of factual and lifestyle programming. It grew to become the leading destination for newlyweds with shows like 90 Day Fiance and Say Yes To The Dress alongside other shows like Body Parts and Monster Inside Me.

For sometime, TLC has become one of the few TV channels on DStv alongside Nickelodeon to distribute localised feeds in Africa. Since last year, MultiChoice had picked up and launched TLC Africa for its consumers in Southern Africa (excluding South Africa) on channel 125.

Currently seen in the West and Eastern parts of Africa, TLC Africa was a lightweight version to TLC South Africa often featuring older shows from the channel. Unlike TLC South Africa, the channel has had resorted to censorship by even isolating shows like I Am Jazz as the lead is transgender.

Last week, a DStv consumer in South Africa had noticed that TLC Africa is not seen on channel 125 and with Southern African consumers sharing a transponder can see the frequencies of the mentioned channels. Since then, a notice was sent to the relevant team and we had finally gotten feedback.

This DStv subscriber had asked whether TLC Africa was removed from channel 125 or merged with channel 135 and the answer was as follows:

TLC Africa and TLC South Africa have not merged. Viewers will now only see the TLC channel feed available to their region—so South African audiences should only access the localised TLC feed on channel 135, and audiences across the rest of Africa will only have access to TLC Africa on channel 125

To dive deeper into this, the sudden disappearance of TLC Africa on channel 125 in South Africa was a MultiChoice thing as they can configure with the settings of their decoders. One example would be SuperSport while South Africa groups them on channels 200-220 these regions group them by 220-240.

Another question was pertaining to Discovery TLC now being referred to as TLC South Africa:

The channel formerly listed as “Discovery TLC” on DStv channel 135 has been updated to reflect its correct brand name, TLC South Africa, aligning with how we refer to it across our PR and marketing platforms.