Sipho maseko biography channel

South African based satellite TV company in Sub-Saharan Africa

For the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation's cable television service, see Multi-Choice TV.

MultiChoice is a South African company that operates DStv, a major satellite television service in Sub-Saharan Africa, and GOtv, a minor service operating in over nine countries of this area and Showmax service. MultiChoice was formed out of the subscriber-management branch of the M-Netterrestrialpay television company, and broadcasts the full range of M-Net channels on the DStv service. MultiChoice is owned by the media conglomerate of the same name. One of the subsidiaries of MultiChoice is DStv Stream, formally DStv Now then DStv App, a service that delivers television transmission to mobile devices such as laptops, smart phones and notebooks.

Formerly, MultiChoice had operations in the Scandinavian, Benelux, Italy, Eastern Europe, Greek & Cypriot regions under the Filmnet TV service, Egypt under CNE (Cable Network of Egypt), Middle East under Gulf TV and Arab Radio and Television Network & Thailand under UBC (United Broadcasting Corporation).

In 2020, MultiChoice had a total subscriber base of 20.1 million viewers throughout Africa, and Naspers asserted that MultiChoice was one of the fastest growing pay-TV operators globally.

History

Early years (1983–1991)

In 1983, Koos Bekker wrote a paper at Columbia University describing the idea that led to M-Net, and along with two others pitched the idea to Naspers, which acquired a 26% share, leading to Naspers executive Ton Vosloo serving as chair of the board. M-Net lost money in its first few years.

Expansion (1992–2017)

In 1993, M-Net was divided into two divisions, one focused on transmission of the entertainment channels and the other on cellphone operations, signal distribution and subscriber management. This second division became MultiCh

Satellite television service in Africa

Digital Satellite Television, abbreviated DStv, is a Sub-Saharan Africandirect broadcast satellite service owned by MultiChoice and based in South Africa, with headquarters in Randburg. DStv provides audio, radio and television channels and services to subscribers across 50 countries, mostly in South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

History

In 1986, pay-television came to South Africa when a single-channel analogue service, M-Net, was launched by Naspers and local businesses/companies. For almost seven years, all of M-Net's operations were handled by a single dedicated company until 1995 when a second subsidiary company, MultiChoice, was launched. This company would take over the operations of M-Net including decoder sales, subscriber services (which were also available in local shops) and account management. MultiChoice would also embark on establishing presence in multiple countries outside South Africa.

Not long after, a digital satellite service in South Africa was announced by MultiChoice and was launched that same year on 6 October 1995 as DStv, an abbreviation for Digital Satellite Television. On its launch, DStv offered a package of 16 channels: Cartoon Network, CNN, a 40-channel DMX audio service, ESPN, Hallmark, K-T.V., M-Net, Movie Magic, SelecTV, Sky News, SuperSport, TNT, Travel Channel, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, TV5 Afrique and VH1. This prompted changes to the main M-Net channel, which, while having its formula unchanged, started concentrating more on African productions, while K-T.V., Movie Magic and SuperSport gained their own separate channels. Aside from the DMX service, subscribers also had access to Radio 702 and Voice of America. Multichoice expected the number of channels to be increased to 24 by early 1996. The launch of DStv was deemed "satisfactory", with decoder sales having surpassed 10,000 un

Don Makatile

Don Makatile

Looking back one cannot help but wallow in the levity brought on by memories of events of the period leading up to uhuru.

Remember the stockpiling of food and the mad scramble for Down Under as all manner of ghastly scenarios were painted about the spectre of life under a black government?

Chief among these "graphic artists" was a man called Eugene Nyathi, a darling of the television screens at the time, whose "expert" views were sought, as the phrase goes, left, right and centre.

Nyathi entered the scene during the highly amplified lamentation of the absence of the black voice in articulating and unpacking socio-political issues.

In modern-day young-speak, he was the man!

That was until some Sherlock Holmes discovered the erudite Nyathi was actually a humble Albert Nana, with barely a matric certificate.

As the glare of television lights moved away from the fake Zimbabwean to allow him space to deal with his comeuppance, for a while serious political analysis became the forte of white males, like Lester Venter.

Clem Sunter's views on business prospects after white rule assumed biblical status.

Venter and Sunter had taken the baton from RW Johnson, an Oxford-educated doomsayer who, in his book, How Long Will South Africa Survive? advanced the pie-in-the-sky argument that the military might of the time would prop up apartheid rule for donkey's years.

Eager for a black voice, we looked across our borders again - this time to Swaziland to find Dumisani Hlophe, a University of Natal Master's graduate in Political Science.

He was legit and his clout was further enhanced by a number of newspapers and other institutions falling over themselves to offer him a job.

Even today his blog introduces him as a well-known political analyst, whose work "covers South African as well as African political economic issues".

Whether or not he satisfied President