In 2021, the SABC and eMedia Investments announced that SABC Sport and the public broadcaster’s 19 radio stations would be added to Openview. The deal was also supposed to include two additional television channels that the SABC planned to fill largely with content from its archives.
Around the same time, the SABC was already working with MultiChoice on a separate arrangement involving SABC Education, after packaging SABC News for DStv.
With no further updates from the SABC, eMedia Investments or MultiChoice about those two extra channels, it is reasonable to conclude that the plans were quietly shelved. This is unsurprising given the financial constraints the SABC has faced in the years leading up to and following the announcements.
SABC News is already packaged exclusively for MultiChoice’s DStv platform, generating significant revenue for the public broadcaster. Because the proposed additional channels were non-exclusive, the SABC would have been responsible for most of the associated costs. Neither MultiChoice nor eMedia Investments has shown much appetite for paying large sums for older or archived content — the same reason SABC Encore was eventually removed from DStv. Advertisers are similarly reluctant to pay high rates for outdated programming.
Complicating matters further, the SABC and MultiChoice were involved in a commercial dispute over the carriage of SABC 1, 2 and 3. While MultiChoice historically paid little or nothing for these channels, regulators had given the SABC permission to charge for them, which may have delayed progress on other deals.
Although the two additional archive channels never launched on Openview or DStv, the SABC has expanded in other ways since then. It now offers SABC Lehae and SABC Variety on digital terrestrial television (DTT), and it has developed its own streaming service, SABC+.
Instead of prioritising new linear channels for third-party platforms, the SABC has shifted its focus toward growing SABC+. Reports also suggest the broadcaster continues to explore options for its own free-to-air satellite platform that could compete with Openview and carry more of its content.
More From Insidus ZA
Loading randomised posts...
Hopefully when they have launched the platform they will include Star Khanya and Starlife channels🙄🥰
ReplyDelete