Discovery Inc.'s global brands boss for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, Lee Hobbs, says the group's new HGTV channel that just launched on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service will bring "loads of new and unseen content" to South African viewers.
Lee Hobbs, Discovery Inc.'s senior vice president for pay-TV and global brands for EMEA, spoke at the official South African media launch event for the HGTV channel held in Cape Town, South Africa.
With a reorganised Discovery Inc. team looking after Africa and the Middle East, Lee Hobbs said "we can move quickly and make sure that we super-serve our fans everywhere".
"We work closely with our United States networks on a global strategy and collaborate with all the regions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including our team in Dubai running the Middle East and Africa region."
"As one voice, this core team is ensuring that our flagship brands like TLC, Discovery Channel, Food Network and now, of course, HGTV are continuing to delight the passions of our superfans."
"We have been working hard on the programming schedule with Kathleen Finch (Discovery's chief lifestyle brands officer) and her team, and I'm very happy to announce loads of new and unseen content that's coming to South Africa".
"The launch of HGTV in South Africa is the start of many launches of the channel across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. HGTV is already one of our biggest and most popular channels on the beIN pay-TV platform across the Middle East," said Lee Hobbs.
"We just launched HGTV 4 weeks ago in Germany and already reaches around 2 million unique viewers and it's creating a huge wave with both advertisers and the media. We also just announced our plan to launch HGTV in the United Kingdom in early-2020."
"We're also in talks for launches in many other markets across Europe, so basically South Africa is one of the first markets to launch the HGTV brand globally. It's really exciting for us. "
"I remember my first channel launch with MultiChoice which I think was TLC in 2011. I'm certain that HGTV is going to just as big a success here with both viewers and advertisers."
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