Imagine being able to watch the latest hit shows on South African television just hours after they’ve been aired in the US. That’s what local pay-television viewers can now look forward to.
Due to the growing threat posed by online piracy, M-Net, the pay-TV entertainment brand in the MultiChoice stable, has announced it will air the very latest American shows, sometimes barely an hour after they’ve been broadcast in the US.
M-Net, which operates a range of channels on the DStv platform, has already begun securing the rights to broadcast hit American TV shows such as Game of Thrones much earlier than it would have in the past. The latest deals it’s signed mean it’s able to broadcast top shows almost immediately after their US airing.
The new service, called Express from the US, will kick off with the second season of drama series Ray Donovan on 13 July. M-Net plans to show the same episode in South Africa that is broadcast in the US just one hour later — at 4am on 14 July — on linear broadcast TV.
Directly after the episode has been broadcast at 4am, it will be made available on demand through the Catch Up menu for subscribers who have a DStv Explora personal video recorder decoder.
The show will then be broadcast in its dedicated primetime evening slot on 15 July at 9.30pm.
M-Net says that because of the fast turnaround time, the “express episodes” will not have a family track or hearing impaired titles. However, the shows will be available in Dolby and in high definition.
Also, broadcasting times will be “slightly different on the M-Net East and West Africa feeds”, says M-Net. “Instead of on a Monday at 4am (South Africa), Ray Donovan will land at 3am on a Tuesday morning, with the primetime evening slot at 9.30pm on a Tuesday evening.” — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media
