I can be first to break the news that from April sport as a genre and therefore SuperSport programming will disappear from the M-Net channel (DStv 101) since M-Net wants subscribers to watch sports coverage exclusively on the various SuperSport channels on DStv.
''M-Net's audiences have evolved. From 1 April there will no longer be any sport on the M-Net channel on satellite television on DStv,'' says Lani Lombard, M-Net communication manager. ''The same sport that the M-Net channel broadcast is already on the SuperSport channels. So why do you want to watch it on the M-Net channel?''
The genre and schedule shifts from 1 April reflect M-Net's realignment into niche and specific genres as the pay broadcaster wants to shift specific TV content where subscribers and viewers know that they can immediately find it. As I already broke the news last year M-Net Action (DStv 106) will definitely turn into a fully fledged action movie channel as it starts to move TV series to M-Net Series (DStv 110) and Vuzu (DStv 123).
Back to M-Net's sports coverage and just a clarifier that M-Net analogue subscribers without DStv who get only M-Net as an analogue channel will still get to see some sports after April 2011 but in a smaller sport programming block. M-Net HD (DStv 170) might still show some sport ''from time to time''. M-Net is also removing all Afrikaans from the M-Net channel. Likewise for Afrikaans programming, viewers will have to go to kykNET (DStv 111) exclusively from 1 April 2011.
