Openview Stream Debuts First TV Channel In South Africa

After rolling out Openview Stream to consumers outside of South Africa in partnership with RunnTV. It appears eMedia Investments will be expanding the eXplore channel to consumers in the region replacing People's Planet from 1st September.

The programming moves between the natural world, life-or-death stories of survival and the darker side of human behaviour. Viewers can expect wildlife and conservation titles alongside documentaries, real-life mysteries and true-crime investigations.

The launch-day evening line-up begins with wildlife and conservation titles before moving into true crime and investigations of real events. These include Cheetah Diaries at 18:00, Chameleons of the World at 18:25, Kalahari Meerkats at 19:20, Endangered with Michaela Strachan at 19:45, Evil Unmasked: The Station Strangler at 20:10 and A Mother’s Madness at 21:00.

Adding eXplore reflects Openview’s continued focus on bringing greater variety to viewers.

Prior to the expansion of eXplore to consumers in South Africa, reports had surfaced that MultiChoice might be looking to add more channels from the broadcaster. This is because test cards had been spotted for eReality and eSeries channels on DStv.

It should be noted that eReality was also home to "true-crime investigations" and eMedia Investments had stripped that from that channel. Now it appears that eMedia Investments is positioning these brands similar to CBS Reality and CBS Justice channels.

CBS Justice is where eXplore resides where it's getting all the edgy stuff which include Evil Unmasked: The Station Strangler and A Mother's Madness. While CBS Reality being eReality gets the other stuff like Judge Judy and My Kitchen Rules.

It will be interesting to see how all this unfolds considering that only 4 out of 9 of eMedia's channels broadcast 24 hours a day. Do they really need more eMedia channels considering that the latter don't operate predominantly like eExtra.