FOX Life a channel operated by Disney, will be 4 years old from 3rd of October on MultiChoice's DStv and ODM and StarTimes Media SA' Starsat platform.
The channel made its controversial African debut back in 2016 replacing not one but two channels which were FOX Crime and FX. The idea was to launch the channel as a female BET/Lifetime channel with African programming.
At launch, the channel did somewhat opposite the local stuff was there as mentioned everything else not really. All the crime, action, scifi, sitcoms and animation went to FOX and with FOX Life getting reality, local, telenovelas (not Turkish) and almost all of FOX there which included exclusive content that was created specifically for FOX.
At the time FOX Life pulled a large amount of viewers from my perspective I'd say 55% were females and 45% were male.
In 2017, through a series of announcements and promos all the FOX originals which were canned to FOX Life moved to the main channel. All this channel had left was reality shows (mostly African), telenovelas, one sitcom and international drama timeslot.
With those changes put in place mostly females were glued to that channel (75%) as opposed to males which was (25%). In that same year it was revealed the channel is doing well with these changes.
Lodestar, Heartbeat, Matter of Respect and Black Money Love made their way to the channel. These shows generated a huge fanbase in the African market and some even went on to create social groups dedicated to these shows. Pretty much, they were the only few platforms serving these type of programs.
Now the trouble started brewing a year later when the channel cut almost all their Turkish shows short which angered a lot of viewers. Instead of sourcing out more seasons they repeated the 1st season over and over again.
In that same year, the African lineup deteriorated - Nigeria's Top Weddings, Lira: Dream Chasers, Dentaa Takes Africa and Cuppy Takes Africa hit the repeat button and remained that way for the course of the channel's existence. Even the international reality lineup is no different Married to Medicine and WAGS are still on the 1st season while Vuzu and E! dish more seasons.
FOX is similar to these regards look at The Simpsons they're still on Season 27 while the United States got past Season 30. It's natural for all channels to have repeats at least FOX had a pulse FOX Life had none of that at all.
2020 arrived and there's a pandemic, around that time FOX Life abandoned the Turkish market and introduced four new Mexican telenovelas from Televisa. Giving the once reigning Telemundo a run for their money since their focus is mainly on action and often night owls.
Starsat launched three telenovela channels this year. One of these channels also supply content from Televisa basically it's owned by them even. The channel is known as Televisa Novelas (TLNovelas). Of course, TLNovelas in Africa hasn't aired any of their shows currently seen on FOX Life yet. There has been rumours that DStv will be adding the brand really soon.
If the rumours are true, FOX Life's time might be running out and there's chances that it already has. They recently promised to air The Candidate after Secrets At The Hotel and that got replaced with a double bill of Along Came Love. Then out of nowhere, Rode To Destiny is now airing double bill as well.
What are the chances that a new program will take up their slots now. The channel is pulling an eBella on viewers before everyone got the news that the eBranded channel was being discontinued a lot of new shows were expected to air on the channel before shoving them onto eExtra.
Both Along Came Love and Rode To Destiny are speculated to end next month since then no news of a replacement has surfaced like eExtra had The Wild and when that ended, viewers didn't get another local drama after that. If a show ends, it's natural for a channel to just mention the replacement's name through the media but if they're not mentioning anything it probably means they got nothing new to offer.
Now a channel like FOX Life going through that again when they won a lot of viewers over only because of those shows only to find out that they have no options once more after it ends.
FOX Life seemed unnecessary to me the channel was meant to be a placeholder for 2 general entertainment channels maybe there was a reason FOX might have felt that they wanted to focus on less brands and try their best not to duplicate entertainment so they canned FX and Crime might have been costly so they took that one away as well which is what led to FOX Life.
FOX was following their owners Disney footsteps in eliminating the competition. Disney Channel had Disney XD till they turned it into a reruns graveyard then you have National Geographic which is factual and explore wildlife with National Geographic WILD expanding the second part of the main channel in short Disney/FOX is restructuring their brands.
FOX Life was an absolute failure it wouldn't shock me if it shuts down in September or October on DStv and Starsat/StarTimes. The channel did shut down in Italy recently and failed in most parts of Europe.
There is another chance it can be saved as well. Perhaps this channel shouldn't rely heavily on telenovelas it's been proven countless of times by them just look at how all the Turkish programs ended up and how the current telenovela lineup looks now. There's even other platforms that offer these shows which reduces the credibility.
Instead of offering 4 hours of telenovelas reduce it to just 2 hours. Build up a 2 hour timeslot for international dramas you have one which can repeat during the daytime (Criminal Minds from FOX) while the other is night owls (Killing Eve, Star and Empire from FOX). The rest can be used for reality shows and at times sitcoms.
FOX mostly has dramas, animation and sitcoms, and occasionally reality shows. They could try and add telenovelas onto that channel again for 1 hour at least and possibly all fragments of Life onto that channel on a limited basis then FOX Life wouldn't pose much of a threat.
FOX Life would partially be a reruns channel at times you'd see the main channel having animation, supernatural or extraordinary shows like The Simpsons, The Walking Dead and Ghosted now this new FOX Life will have none of that only shows that will live up to the name Life which are Grey's Anatomy, Hawaii Five-O, Atlanta and Empire.
The telenovela lineup will be similar in the repetition FOX Life will add two new telenovelas with the main channel getting one. By the time Life wraps up one of their telenovelas they begin repeating the one put on FOX while the other slot remains with new telenovelas and often repeats.
The only thing that gets less repeats is reality I believe they can make reality #1 if they get the right programs onboard and invest in local programs viewers will entertain viewers and make a major impact instead of joining a hundred other platforms and create informative programming.
In the end FOX will be the home of reality, drama, horror, action, crime, comedy, animation and telenovelas with Life getting reality (large portion), drama, comedy (occasionally) and telenovelas. In short FOX will be the fiction and non-fictional channel with Life's focus on the non-fiction part and perhaps even expanding in those few areas with repeats still being these channels profession. Life had all I was suggesting at launch except their programming had a target audience which led them to have 3 lineup changes since the channel aired time will only tell how this channel copes with society.
