The History Of Former StarSat Channel, Zone Club (Also Known As Fine Living)

Zone Club was a European based channel owned by Chello Zone which was eventually folded under AMC International by 2013. The brand was incepted by 1998 as Club, Chello Zone's distributor of lifestyle and general entertainment.

Expanding onto the lineup, it featured a lineup of home, travel, food and relationship based content. It also broadcast dramas and documentaries. Some notable titles include The Divine Design, Maxed Out and Saturday Cooks!

In September 2009, it was revealed that Chello Zone (now Chellomedia) struck a deal with AMC International to launch CBS Drama alongside two other channels provided to DStv, CBS Action (now CBS Justice) and CBS Reality. Of course, these brands were added to replace most of the Zone channels.

Chellomedia offered a variety of linear channels including Zone Europa, Zone Fantasy, Zone Reality, Zone Thriller, Zone Horror, Zone Romantica. As it is only 5 channels were inserted were inserted to replace this batch while others were filled with timeshift channels.

Zone Club's replacement was divided by 3 channels. In Poland, audiences got CBS Drama, Hungary got a kids channel Minimax and EMEA was the only region to have a replacement that wasn't owned by AMC International to some extent, Fine Living Network.

Fine Living Network was conceived in a joint venture with Scripps Networks which was eventually acquired by Warner Bros. Discovery (known as Discovery Inc. at the time in 2018).

Of course, after the brand was acquired there wasn't much mention of Chellomedia (or AMC International) so it was believed that Warner Bros. Discovery bought both company's share of Fine Living but take one factor to account.

Fine Living was just a random channel sure it had reality shows but not that of Zone Club. As the lineup consisted of mainly content from Warner Bros. Discovery like Beachfront Bargain Hunt, Candice Tells All, Extreme Homes, Fixer Upper and Million Dollar Rooms.

To top it off Fine Living hadn't seen much success internationally as it closed in Netherlands and Africa by 2019 and a year later dissolved after filing for bankruptcy with a debt of €30 million. It was eventually survived by the European version of HGTV and Real Time.

Of course, HGTV was exclusive to MultiChoice's DStv meaning consumers on StarSat would have to get another platform and pay extra so there comes Real Time a catch-up channel which was subsequently scrapped after the pay-tv platform failed to resolve their contractual agreement with the owners.

It also led to the cutback of other channels such as Discovery Science and Investigation Discovery and this comes after the loss of Discovery Family and as mentioned already Fine Living with the pay-tv company still sourcing replacements for over a year.

Travel Channel Could Be On The Chopping Block On DStv Following The Major Decline In Europe

Travel Channel is currently on autopilot through DStv as international markets have started aligning themselves with the main counterpart while others have pulled the rug under the channel.

One of the longest running brands on Discovery offered leisure, lifestyle and other travel related programs is transitioning to horror which is probably part of a phase in rolling out Discovery+.

As mentioned, several Travel Channels have closed down amidst the transition to horror and it wouldn't surprise me if the same fate awaited the brand in Africa.

The channel has heavily been disregarded by the media including Discovery Inc which held a celebration for much younger brands TLC and ID this month. On top of that ignorance is usually the first signs in terminations at Discovery.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Discovery Family might end as a linear channel in Africa following its termination on StarSat of course details surrounding the termination remain a mystery.

Either Discovery is consolidating the entertainment seen on Discovery Family and Travel Channel to male focused DMAX as seen in Europe or they are launching an accessory to HGTV, Magnolia Network.

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Several Channels Are Missing On Starsat

As usual, Starsat failed to engage with the media regarding the upcoming developments occuring on the platform. Apparently several viewers noticed a bunch of other channels went missing on the platform and the channel go as follows:

Fine Living: Discovery made the decision to remove the channel as part of a strategic alignment meaning you could see more changes coming from their stable. Pretty much Real Time is the channel's successor kind of like how Discovery Science was snatched for Discovery Family.

St Eyethu: nearly a year after this outdated local channel launched on the platform it was discretely taken off. According to StarTimes, they're working on the content there.

SA Music and Soul Playlist: both these channels are currently available on OpenView. After an intense battle, StarTimes promised to bring fresh content which implied that these channels were phased out from their portfolio.

St Africa and WAP TV: no actual details were given regarding their removals for St Africa it could be in relation with St Eyethu.

StarTimes joins eMedia Investments and MultiChoice that witnessed the loss of several channels during the course of 2020 except theirs came a little later than the other two.

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