JSE-listed group eMedia’s free satellite broadcasting platform Openview is expecting 45,000 subscriptions per month for its new pay-TV service, which will be launched tomorrow, as its rival MultiChoice inked a deal to expand its streaming platform.
Openview, which is accessed via a decoder, was launched 10 years ago and is available in 3-million households providing a range of TV channels via satellite at no monthly fee.
eMedia, which owns e.tv, news channel eNCA and Gauteng radio station YFM, has added a new subscription feature to the Openview system that will give customers the option to pay for extra channels. Openview will compete with MultiChoice, which has been dominating the subscription-TV market for years and has 9-million customers in South Africa.
eMedia CEO Khalik Sherrif said on Friday that “the time is right to enter the pay-TV space in a unique way and making niche content available to our audiences”.
He said Openview content would always be free on the decoder.
“The add-on allows viewers who are interested in niche content to subscribe to stand-alone bouquets via the decoder. The content is also conveniently available in one place — eliminating the need to search all over for it.”
The Openview subscription package will launch with the Pride bouquet that will have two channels, OUTtv and Fuse, for R74.99 a month.
Sheriff said the take-up of its subscription option would depend on the specific bouquet.
“We are adding more bouquets with other niche content soon. Openview is in more than 3-million homes across South Africa. We are conservatively predicting an average of 45,000 subscriptions per month. We will see more uptake in the future with the additional bouquets to be added,” he said.
Andre Wills, MD at Africa Analysis, said on Friday that satellite subscription provider success depended on the quality of the content offered at the price asked.
The differentiator with eMedia was that it was not starting from scratch — it already had a base and sought to monetise that platform.
“The key issue will be the quality of content offered through the new subscription service. We would expect that eMedia does convert some existing subscribers to paying subscribers, but this will depend strongly on the content.
“The more niche the content, the smaller the target market and thus, proportionally, the smaller the expected future subscriber base. The challenge in subscription content is to build a large enough paying subscriber base to support your subscription service.”
MultiChoice has been under pressure, with its premium subscriber base declining as customers opt for streaming platforms such as Netflix
eMedia’s news came on the same day that MultiChoice announced its partnership with Nasdaq-listed Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Sky to add more content to the JSE-listed company’s streaming service, Showmax, and strengthen its position against rivals such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
MultiChoice said the global video media landscape had changed rapidly in recent years, led by broadband adoption and the growth of direct-to-consumer streaming platforms. “Though Africa has lagged somewhat, it is now approaching an inflection point in terms of broadband connectivity and affordability,” it said.
While MultiChoice continues to invest in its linear pay-TV DStv businesses to drive growth and penetration, “it believes that this is an appropriate time to step up its ambition and investment in the subscription video-on-demand/over-the-top segment”, it said. “This agreement represents a great opportunity for our Showmax team to scale even greater heights by working with a leading global player in Comcast and its subsidiaries,” said MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela.
MultiChoice has been under pressure, with its premium subscriber base declining as customers opt for streaming platforms such as Netflix.
To embrace competitors, MultiChoice has integrated Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on its decoder to provide customers the convenience of accessing a variety of entertainment content in one central place. This keeps subscribers on the DStv platform even if they downgrade to a lower DStv offering. It also earns additional revenue as those streaming providers pay a fee for distribution and subscription collection.
MultiChoice has been diversifying into a platform-based business that will provide a range of complementary services to its customers, including funeral insurance, internet packages, sports betting through the acquisition of KingMakers, online education via Udemy and a reward programme.
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