eMedia has launched Openview Stream, a free, ad-supported streaming television (Fast) platform, in seven African markets – Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius – taking its Openview brand beyond South Africa’s borders for the first time. And eMedia group CEO Khalik Sherrif has explained why the group’s home market isn’t on the list.
South Africa’s high data costs make it unfriendly to the Fast model, Sherrif told TechCentral in an interview on Monday. “Fast is television on data,” he said. “If you’re watching television from 6pm to 10pm on a Fast platform, it costs you as the consumer more [than the broadcaster]. VOD, taken in half hour or smaller bites, is easier for the customer to manage. South Africa is generally a VOD market.”
Read: eMedia launches Openview Stream
That, he said, is why the group’s eVOD service occupies the local streaming slot – and should be given “another two or three years to position itself as the market leader in VOD” – while Openview Stream hunts for opportunity beyond South Africa’s borders. “It is not about protecting Openview’s satellite advertising base,” Sherrif said. “There is an opportunity [in streaming] that doesn’t exist in South Africa.”
Mobile and data penetration in several of the launch markets is well suited to streaming, he said – helped, notably, by the presence of Starlink. “Starlink is in many of those areas, and it has expanded the data-driven world. That makes it easy for us to get in there.”
A South African launch will come “when the market is absolutely ready for it” – about three years away, Sherrif estimated, and dependent in part on developments in the local digital market, including, he hopes, Starlink finally being licensed to operate in South Africa.
Sherrif also detailed the content plan. “In the Openview world, you should not be more than 20 channels – 20 is the sweet spot,” he said. About half of those will be eMedia’s own channels, trading on a brand he said is well recognised in English-speaking Africa.
Channels
Two to three channels per market will be local – eMedia is hunting for a news channel and an entertainment channel in each launch country – while two to four channels of Indian content, dubbed into local languages, will tap what Sherrif said is strong demand, helped by RunnTV’s Indian roots and the Indian diaspora across Africa.
General entertainment channels from Europe and the US will round out the 20. One channel that won’t appear is eNCA. “eNCA is exclusive to DStv,” Sherrif noted.
The platform is available on Android and iOS, with smart TV apps to follow as demand grows – the same path eVOD took in South Africa.
eMedia, Sherrif said, is not a white-label customer of RunnTV but an equity partner in the business, in both India and Africa. “I would even go further and say equal shareholder,” he said, describing the relationship as a joint venture in which eMedia is closely involved in the app’s development – and through which the platform is itself offered to others as a white-label product.
“Mistakes were made in the OTT world – everybody went in too hard and too fast. The biggest brands in the world crashed because of it. Our strategy: go easy, go slow, and surely,” he said. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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