CNBC Africa launches on Star Times Nigeria

CNBC Africa today announced that they will be launching on Nigeria's second largest pay-tv provider (and second largest on the continent), Star Times. This allows the largest business news network on the continent to be seen by potentially an additional 3 million viewers.


Head of Public Relations at StarTimes Nigeria, Israel Bolaji, noted that, “As a business, this addition means an exciting scale-up on our life enriching news channel options for esteemed subscribers and reinforces StarTimes’ stature as the fastest growing Pay TV network operator in Africa.”

Executive Director for ABN Group (the company the operates the CNBC Africa and Forbes Africa brands), Sid Wahi, stated that “CNBC Africa has had the best Pan African business content for well over 9 years now. Getting onto additional terrestrial platforms like StarTimes paves the way for us to reach new audiences in new markets.”    

Prior to being exclusively available on DStv, CNBC Africa was available freely on Sentech's Vivid platform (the precursor to Freevison). The channel's stream is still available without restriction at its website. 

2016 Football broadcast rights for South Africa

I know this is not what I usually cover, but below are the various major soccer leagues and where to find them for the 2016-2017 football season.

Supersport is available on DStv
Starsat Sort is available on Starsat
Fox Sports is available on Starsat
SABC is available on all platforms

Time for the News Channels To Get Starsat?

There once was a time when all one needed for sports in South Africa was Supersport. If Supersport did not have it, it did not exist.

However, now Starsat's sports offering, made up of a pair of Fox Sports Channels and StarTimes Sports, is starting to slowly eat away at Supersport's sports rights, meaning only the approximately 100 000 Starsat subscribers have access to sports events like the Women's World Cup, the under 20 World Cup and, from next season, the Bundesliga, among others.

However, not only do most viewers not have access to Starsat, but it doesn't seem as if the South African news channels, eNCA, SABC News Channel and ANN7, have Starsat either. Instead the only highlights they will show are highlights of matches that aired on Supersport or the SABC's sports offering.

The result? When the sports bulletin now comes on on these channels, any sports that airs on Starsat is now treated as merely being an after thought.

A prime example of this would be the Women's World Cup. Back in 2011 when the tournament aired on Supersport (with select matches on SABC1), the tournament was treated as any other part of the sports bulletin getting the full highlights package treatment.

This time around, Supersport ditched the Women's World Cup and the Under 20 World Cup in favour of showing the Copa America and the Women's World Cup has merely become an afterthought in the sports bulletin, usually lucky if the scores are mentioned.

Another major sporting event that is currently taking place that is not being aired on Supersport is the inaugural European Games being held in Baku. However, neither ANN7, eNCA or SABC News will be reporting on that (and neither will 24 hour sports news channel, Supersprt Blitz) because it is being aired on Fox Sports and not Supersport. 

Though it may seem like something small that sporting events shown on Fox Sports Africa and StarTimes Sports is being ignored by the 'mainstream' South African news channels, it is just a matter of time before one of these two broadcasters nab a major South African sporting event and that event could really suffer if the news channels and the rest of the media in South Africa are going to continue to nearly ignore any sports that does not air on either Supersport or the SABC. 

Starsat [Finally] Gets Into the Local Content Game

 

Starsat, South Africa's second, small pay tv provider is finally expanding into producing more local content.

At the moment, the only locally produced programming on Starsat's self compiled channels is the excellent Puppet Nation (which is given away for free on Youtube anyway and was launched way before Starsat), and before that they had a magazine show that was co-hosted by AKA, but was silently cancelled.

Their latest attempt into the local content market is in the form of four new shows, surprisingly all of which are scripted and not just cheap reality trash. The first, which the press release said is the "most popular," despite not havin any viewership data or buzz, is “David Kau’s House,” with comedian David Kau. The rest of the four are a sitcom (Wired), two dramas (Twisted and Sweetest Taboo).

 What is the most admirable part in Starsat's local content venture is that all rights will remain the property of the producers and not the broadcaster, like other paytv providers we know. (Good example of this at issue would be when MNet launched The Wild. A Google search will tell you what I am referring to).

The press release also shows Starsat finally realising that local content has really become popular in the last few years as quality and choice has increased. This move by Starsat is likely going to compete with MNet's local interest brand, Mzansi Magic

In addition to this, Starsat is also launching two self-compiled music channels. The one, Star Times SA Music, will, as the name says, be about South African music and the other, Star Times Soul, is about soul music. (If there is one thing that Starsat can learn from DStv is that generic channels that lack a brand image do not work. This is evident in the recent closure of two channels that carried the MNet Series name but then relaunched as channels with better brand identities. This is especially needed in music channels where brands and trendiness is of particular importance)