TopTV, at the South African pay TV operator's first ever programming press preview held in Cape Town, answered the question that journalists and TV critics most wanted to ask: what about new TV channels.
TopTV which turned two last week since it launched in May 2010 haven't added any significant new TV channels since except for new channels AMC (African Movie Channel) and NHK World replacing HiNolly and CurrentTV which ceased broadcasting.
"We have to be careful since we have limited satellite capacity left and we have to think carefully," said Heather Kennedy, TopTV's vice president for marketing. In answer to another question she said TopTV has space for about 8 TV channels left and that further capacity will become available later in the year when another satellite is launched into orbit from Europe.
"We are looking. We are constantly working on it. The relevant people are constantly looking at different channel proposals. It is important for a pay TV service to constantly improve its content offering to subscribers and TopTV is really working hard on it. You have to keep giving your subscribers more and we are evaluating."
Regarding sport she explained the difficulties around acquiring sports rights and sports content and went through TopTV's available channels offering some sport coverage and explained the value proposition of each channel and showed a highlight reel of Setanta Africa.
Regarding the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games in London Heather Kennedy said the SABC has the free-to-air broadcasting rights (the SABC channels are carried on TopTV) and DStv the rest.
"Sport is important but we do also have a lot of subscribers who are perfectly happy without it and when they want to watch a big game go to friends' homes or the pub to watch it there together."
"We've been working on a sport strategy," said Heather Kennedy. "All I can say at this moment is watch this space."
