StarSat To Offer More Dubbed Entertainment In Various African Languages

Satellite pay-TV provider StarSat has announced it is doubling down on dubbing foreign telenovelas into Zulu and other indigenous South African languages.

This comes after eMedia’s E-tv and Openview platforms saw success dubbing Turkish telenovelas into Afrikaans.

“Telenovelas continue dominating global television viewing, proving one of the most powerful entertainment genres in modern-day television and on-demand subscription viewing,” StarSat stated.

It said telenovelas are distinct from soap operas.

“Unlike soapies that go on seemingly forever, the running time of telenovelas averages around 120 episodes,” said StarSat.

“Whereas soapies can go on for decades, telenovelas usually run between six months and a year.”

Another key difference is that soap operas often appeal to women, whereas telenovelas are more family orientated, with some exceptions, StarSat said.

StarSat launched its Midrand dubbing studios in 2021 with the objective to adapt its best-performing telenovelas to Zulu and other indigenous South African languages.

“Our dubbing initiative continues to create many new jobs along the value chain,” said ODM CEO Debbie Wu.

On Digital Media (ODM) is the company that owned and operated TopTV. StarTimes bought it out of business rescue in 2013 and rebranded the service StarSat.

“Since the launch of our dubbing studios, we have recruited and trained numerous South African youth as voice actors, directors, translators, editors, and sound engineers,” Wu said.

Following the success of the Zulu-dubbed version Philippine novella “The Blood Sisters”, StarSat has launched a Zulu version of the popular Zee TV novella “Waaris: Indlalifa”.

A broad slate of Zulu dubbed telenovelas of Mexican, Korean, Spanish, and Indian origin are in the works for broadcast on StarSat’s flagship channel StarTimes RISE.

The pay-TV operator also has an app subscribers can use to watch its library of telenovelas.

StarSat also said it would broadcast English novellas, such as the Philippine show “La Vida Lena”, which will be on the ST Novella E Plus channel. It will also broadcast “My Left Side” — a Zee Novella.

Bollywood Updates: Starsat To Welcome Zulu Dubbed Version Of Zee TV's The Heir, Zee World Reportedly Postpones Unfortunate Love And Every Girl's Dream And Star Life Welcomes Back Game Of Love And Adds Imile To The Lineup

The news of The Heir's launch on the StarSat platform has garnered mix reaction from viewers as most want to see something similar through the likes of SABC 1 and Mzansi Magic instead of having another eExtra as the channel St Rise has been positioned in the way of these two channels.

Unlike Mzansi Magic, SABC 1 has dubbed several international content primarily kids shows in a variety of native languages so St Rise hopping on the dub wagon doesn't seem far fetched at this point in time.

In other startling news, Zee World still doesn't have a launch date for Unfortunate Love and Every Girl's Dream. The two series were teased later in July with timeslots already allocated for the shows but it seems as if the shows won't come in their respective slots.

Other developments on the channel includes one of their other shows like My Heart Knows which follows Meet In Love to have it's broadcast reduced to compliment Dance Naija Dance which is a spinoff to Dance Africa Dance.

Last development isn't as much devastating as the other two unless you're looking at fan favourite series returning to Star Life, Game Of Love which is just Zee World's Twist Of Fate or Telemundo's Fearless Heart so yeah you can see how irritable that can be.

Good news for audiences of Star Life, the channel apparently picked up rights to another series Imlie which follows the titular character as she is forced to marry a journalist after they seek shelter in a hut during heavy rains. On reaching the city, she realises that her husband is engaged to be married.

Based on the Bengali drama Ishti Kutum, the series stars Sumbul Touqeer Khan, Fahmaan Khan, Mayuri Deshmukh and Gashmeer Mahajani.

The news of Imlie comes just as the channel unveils new series Pandya Store and Night Of Doom.

Roundups #82: Paramount Provides Outdated EPG For Nicktoons Africa, Dressed For Mourning Coming Soon To Citi TV And StarSat To Double Down On Dubs With Second Zulu Drama Series

Could Nicktoons be on the chopping block?

Although, there's no official confirmation about the channel's demise within the region. Nicktoons has been less toonie as the lineup is jam-packed with mainly current shows from Nickelodeon with a few discrepancies here and there.

Apparently, MultiChoice provides two alternate schedules of the channel same with Nick Jr. but as mentioned the discrepancies are more transparent with Nicktoons as the channel lists Program To Be Confirmed online while DStv's EPG mentions Alvin although it's Horrid Henry.

It's believed at this point that the only reason Nicktoons is just offering a duplicate selection to Nickelodeon is Paramount's way of phasing out the channel and cancelling out potential liabilities like Horrid Henry with NickMusic's fate in question.

Women In Black coming soon to Ghana

Citi TV a Ghanaian channel that features a unique blend of credible, authentic and timely news, current affairs as well as compelling non-news programming will soon introduce the rumoured TLNovelas series titled Mujeres De Negro (Dressed For Mourning).

Mujeres De Negro follows the rich coastal town of Encino Blanco, three married couples spend the weekend at Coral Beach while their husbands go on their already traditional fishing trip on a yacht. Not far from the pier, the yacht suddenly explodes. Only chips remain on the surface. In seconds they lost their husbands, and they have to go on with their lives without them...just as they planned.

The series stars Mayrín Villanueva, Alejandra Barros, Ximena Herrera and Arturo Peniche.

More local dubs are heading your way

eMedia has seen success with eExtra's Kuiertyd that it's consolidated this content onto more platforms only for MultiChoice to ramp up a similar offering on kykNET & Kie with StarTimes doing something similar which is no way competition.

Earlier in the year, StarSat launched its first Zulu dubbed show with Phillipine revenge drama Blood Sisters on St Novelas now they'll be launching a second Zulu dubbed show but this time for the channel St Rise worst part they pick Waaris (The Heir).

Waaris follows Amba, who belongs to a Punjabi family, gives birth to a girl child. However, circumstances force her to hide the gender of her baby and raise her like a boy. The series aired on Zee World, Zee One and eExtra and now it's also launching on St Rise from August 22nd.