E.tv sister company and free-to-air satellite television broadcaster OpenView HD will pull the plug on four channels off its platform in the next two months as it rejigs its line-up, it said on Wednesday.
ASTV, Spirit Word, Wild TV Africa and Ekurhuleni TV will go off the air between the end of September and mid-October, the company said in a statement.
However, it said at the same time that it will launch new channels on the platform in October.
The channel cancellations form part of an “annual content review”. They are being pulled after “careful consideration of their performance and [in light of] the overall OpenView HD strategy”, said the platform’s channel and acquisitions manager Ziyanda Mngomezulu.
She said the soon-to-be-cancelled channels played a “significant and integral role in getting the platform to where it is today, but that the company’s overall audience and business imperatives require constant reassessment of the channel offering”.
OpenView HD said it has half a million activated households watching its free digital satellite TV service and said activation numbers have increased “significantly” in recent months. On some days, it is adding more than a thousand households, it claimed.
The company admitted there has been a shortage of OpenView HD decoders available to consumers. MD Patrick Conroy said the problem is being addressed.
“Our retail partner, Game, has pumped tens of thousands of boxes into the market, with a further 70 000 decoders destined to be in stores next month,” he said in the statement.
Two additional retailers will also be stocking OpenView HD decoders leading up to Christmas. The company did not name the retailers. — © 2016 NewsCentral Media
