Could Discovery Family And Real Time Also Be Going Dark Following The Termination Of Discovery Science And Discovery Turbo Xtra?

During the week, it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery would be ending Discovery Science and also Discovery Turbo Xtra across various international markets (including Africa) meaning similar to the remaining Disney Channels in Asia they won't live through 2024.

Prior to these Discovery channels demise, Warner Bros. Discovery had quietly removed any mentions of "Brand New" from their promos with Discovery Family and Real Time both of which are residing on Zuku and MultiChoice's DStv across Africa had undergone a similar route.

Unlike Discovery Science, Discovery Family and Real Time continue to update their offering. I would be lying if I didn't say Warner had made changes to the channel that would question their very existence.

Few years back, Warner would licence content exclusively for these channels particularly The Carbonaro Effect and The Marilyn Denis Show but now both channels exist to rehash content from Discovery Channel, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery and HGTV.

On top of that, there's no marketing going towards these brands particularly content viewed on them. Considering these channels are a priority to both Warner and the viewers, you'd expect consistency. Although the latter is just repeats they are consumers actually viewing the content.

Some of these viewers may get attached to some of the content and would want to keep tabs. Warner's failure to just promote these shows would further distance viewers from the channel or better yet affect the performance as mentioning these shows would keep viewers onboard.

As to whether Real Time and Discovery Family could be going dark in the region as seen with Disney's offering in Asia and Warner's offering in Europe - that's kind of quo.

After what happened to Boomerang, Warner may look at ways of trying to keep the content intact without negatively impacting the viewers. Perhaps a merger/rebranding of the channels is what awaits for them in future or if a closure is inevitable perhaps a substitute like Discovery Channel and TLC.

In all honesty, Real Time looks more lively and upbeat than Discovery Family (with its large chunk of Discovery Channel) as it inherits content from Food Network, HGTV and Investigation Discovery with very little investment coming from TLC and Animal Planet.

Warner Bros. Discovery To Close Discovery Science And Discovery Turbo Xtra Worldwide By The End Of 2023

According to Paginamedia.ro, Warner Bros. Discovery plans to retract/close Discoivery Science and Discovery Turbo Xtra from various territories across Europe by the end of 2023. The decision comes as a result of the company's strategy to optimize their content and portfolio of linear channels seen in the region.

Countries affected include Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Israel, Latvia, Luthuania, Estonia, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

Discovery Science (also known as The Science Channel) is a factual and educational channel that was once packaged by StarTimes and On Digital Media's Starsat and SABC+. It featured shows currently viewed on Discovery Family including as How Its Made, Mythbusters, Extreme Engineering and How The Universe works.

Discovery Turbo Xtra (also known as MotorTrend) was a cars and motorsport channel that featured shows such as Chasing Classic Cars, FourWheeler, Iron Resurrection and Texas Metal. Although the channel wasn't viewable in Africa, select shows were distributed on Discovery Channel.

Warner Bros. Discovery offers a variety of brands including Discovery Channel, HGTV, TLC, Food Network and Animal Planet. These brands were said to substitute Discovery Science and Discovery Turbo Xtra once it shuts down by the end of 2023.

During the year, Robert Blair left Warner. Bros. Discovery as head of international TV distribution with speculation growing on a possible streamline to their portfolio. As the company is looking to sell less content to brands like M-Net and Showmax and also reduce content spend on brands like Cartoon Network and Cartoonito.

Discussion: Could SABC Look Into Closing A Few Channels??? As Plans Are Underway To Cut Back On Costs + 7de Laan Could Go Dark By Next Month Abruptly As SABC Is Cash Strapped

Could SABC look into reducing their portfolio?

During the week, it was learnt that 7de Laan would pause production and this was after SABC had been piling up its debt for the soon-to-be-axed Afrikaans drama. The public broadcaster not struggling to obtain income through load shedding and the reduction of analogue is looking to axe more content.

Not long ago, it was discovered that uBettina Wethu would be next victim. Unlike 7de Laan, uBettina Wethu has seen a decline in viewership that eMedia Investments was able to rescue the drama with a fourth season awaiting release on their linear platforms.

Another would be sporting rights in which the public broadcaster failed to obtain rights to the T-20 and also couldn't come to an agreement with SuperSport for the Rugby World Cup.

With the public broadcaster relying on peanuts to get on by at this point perhaps a restructure to their local portfolio is needed. For several decades, they had been producing content for SABC 1-3 while as supplying SABC Sport and Education perhaps a reduction to their local offering would do them good.

Instead of prioritising 3 channels, maybe the public broadcaster could put all their money on SABC 1 and use SABC+ to substitute the other two channels. SABC 1 remains as the most watched free-to-view channel in the market while the other had seen major declines.

The public broadcaster is anticipated to lose viewers once 7de Laan departs on SABC 2. Perhaps a merger between SABC 2 and SABC 3 would do them good. One thing I've seen from their competitors is the growth in dubs you barely get that much with the SABC.

I'm not saying SABC 2 would be exactly like Telemundo/Zee World but something similar to eXposed/eExtra which too has its lineup of international dramas with local elements such as Die Kontrak, SterStatus and Ouma Sarie all of which are folded under the Kuiertyd block.

SABC 3 despite not getting as much viewers as SABC 1 or 2 has more viewers than most of the public broadcaster's DTT offering such as SABC Education, SABC eKhaya and SABC News. Maybe the channel could serve as an Encore station for their past programming.

Another could be exploring a potential sell of their channels, the idea would be similar to Disney that the public broadcaster maintains majority stake and this other party manage the content with the public broadcaster in charge of marketing this content to consumers.

7de Laan is under hot water

As mentioned earlier, SABC had decided to axe the longest running Afrikaans soap on SABC 2 as they can't afford the expenses supplied to the production crew for further episodes. With the last episode initially set for December 26, 2023 the series is likely to go off air much earlier.

According to sources, the SABC only contracted Danie Odendaal Productions to produce 7de Laan episodes until 24 October, although plans were to keep the show running until 26 December as mentioned. The soap faces a chance of being cancelled by next month and not December as advised.

That is unless SABC doesn't find the necessary funds to keep the show on air and crew involved in production of the show were informed about this and had since then gone on to film other projects so should the SABC find something it would be impossible to film these episodes.

Leading to further speculation that the SABC may not get the remaining 45 episodes of the show but something far less than that if none at all. Ideally, 7de Laan could as well end with a two part feature film which broadcast for an hour or two and not the usual 21 minutes as seen with the finale of Showtime's Ray Donovan.

How Play Room Could Pan Out In The Rest Of Africa On DStv And Possible GOtv?

During the week, it was reported by sources that Ngwato Nkosi Group and MultiChoice will unveil their third TV channel to consumers, Play Room. A KTV and Akili Kids infused channel featuring educational and entertaining content some of which will be in local languages.

From what is understood, it's currently unknown if Play Room will be available in the rest of Africa at the same time as South Africa. Similar to sister channel, Newzroom Afrika it was first launched in South Africa before rolling out in the rest of Africa.

Movie Room on the other operate with two independent feeds one seen in Southern Africa and another for other African markets.

If anything, Play Room could undergo a similar scenario seen with their other sister brands. It could first establish its presence in South Africa or rollout across Africa at the same time and in a similar form to Movie Room I mean the idea of housing seperate feeds wouldn't seem far fetched.

It was very much confirmed that popular animated titles like CoComelon and Akili And Me would be dubbed in Zulu. A language that some parts of Africa aren't familiar with so if anything it wouldn't be shocking if there wasn't any local push initially in these countries.

Countries like East Africa already supply their own Play Room brand, Akili Kids. That is likely to get phased out should MultiChoice put any local investment toward Play Room.

I mean the scenario in each country is different but in recent years MultiChoice has been doing a lot of quality control. Not that Akili Kids is not performing to its potential but there's just so much of a resemblance to Play Room that MultiChoice may want to limit that offering.

Another having to do with transponder constraints, a lot of people following up on the matter are expecting more channels to close as the pay-tv company unveils new attractions.

What Has Glow TV Been Up To Following Their Departure From Linear Television?

Glow TV was a general entertainment channel operated by the Nismedia Group. It promoted Hindi culture with a variety of made for TV content like This Is Love and Little Bheem from India alongside content based in South Africa like The Get Real Talk Show With Denver Naicker.

Earlier in the year, Glow TV ended transmission on the Openview platform after a heated dispute with eMedia Investments for the distribution of the brand. It was also removed from StarSat after negotiation between the two didn't pan out - therefore ending it's run on TV.

As for an OTT platform, Nismedia was looking to continue Glow TV in some capacity and one of those could have been a digital service. Although they didn't want to dive further into specifics, their main concern overall was on their future with linear television.

Openview partly contributed to Glow TV's success that it was sort of hard on Nismedia to imagine a future without their viewers and sort of hard to build something like eVOD and Showmax from scratch.

Netflix continues to remain dominant in the African market alongside YouTube leading MultiChoice to sell part of their stake in Showmax to NBCUniversal. eMedia Investments on the other had to sought through partnerships to build the streamer's local portfolio.

Both platforms are confined to a paywall that select shows would be freely accessible as a means to lure potential consumers particularly those tailored to platforms like e.tv and SABC as a source of entertainment.

As for what Glow TV has been up in the last months, it's hard to tell as there's been a lot of inactivity or at least with the Glow brand indefinitely as Nismedia had been using the channel's social accounts to promote their other properties, Laudium Sun. 

The Laudium Sun is a community newspaper serving it's readers in Laudium & surrounds since 1984. The newspaper is delivered door-to-door in residential areas, whereby mainly people of Indian origin live. The paper is a household name amongst the community.

If one had to guess, it's possible Glow TV had been folded under Laudium Sun and this is probably their only means of survival. Although, it doesn't come with a linear platform or TV series. They do engage directly with consumers through live events and other activities.