Internet service provider MWeb is working with broadcaster MultiChoice on the option of launching a bundle of uncapped broadband, pay TV, and possibly even voice telephony to SA consumers
Browsing: DStv
MultiChoice added more than 360 000 new subscribers in SA in the six months to 30 September, handily beating its new rival On Digital Media, which launched TopTV in May
After years of testing and fighting for a licence, pay-TV operator MultiChoice has finally launched a digital terrestrial television broadcasting service for mobile phones.
TopTV will launch high-definition channels next year as it takes its fight for subscribers with incumbent pay-TV operator MultiChoice to the next level. The company, owned by On Digital Media (ODM), says it expects to launch
MultiChoice, which operates the DStv service, has been awarded a digital mobile television broadcasting licence by default after the other bidder, Super 5 Media, withdrew its application. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) announced on Friday morning that MultiChoice would become the second mobile TV broadcaster after e.tv was awarded a licence earlier this year.
Pay-TV licensee Super 5 Media has finally admitted publicly that it is facing big problems. But newly appointed director Muhammad Lockhat says the company is still working to get a pay-TV product to market, despite it recently retrenching all of its employees. It was recently granted another extension by industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), allowing it until February 2011 to launch a service.
Pay-TV licensee Super 5 Media has been granted another extension by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to launch a service. Icasa spokesman Paseka Maleka says the regulator has granted the company another six months to get a service off the ground.
MultiChoice has added three additional Internet service providers as distribution partners for its DStv On Demand Internet streaming service. They are Vox Telecom, Neology and Cybersmart. The company launched its first online on-demand video offering through MWeb just two months after the Internet service provider came to market with an aggressively priced uncapped broadband service.
SuperSport CEO Imtiaz Patel will succeed Nolo Letele as group CEO of pay-TV broadcaster MultiChoice on 1 October. Letele, who was due to retire later this year, has been named as executive chairman of MultiChoice SA. Announcing the changes on Thursday, a MultiChoice spokesman says the board had agreed on an executive chairmanship to “meet the challenges faced by the underlying entities”.
More than four years after the first mobile-TV service was introduced, only 3,2m users worldwide are paying to receive broadcasts to their handsets, according to research by international analyst firm Juniper Research. This is probably bad news for pay-TV incumbent MultiChoice and cellphone operator Vodacom, both of which have recently introduced mobile-TV products.