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MultiChoice's brilliant and awesomely superb new service DStv on Demand that was launched last week and that is free to all DStv Premium subscribers is also free in another way: it's commercial free.
Whether DStv Premium subscribers watch TV shows on their SD PVR, HD PVR or online by way of streaming or downloading it, it comes without any TV commercials or ads. I asked Jason Probert, DStv Online general manager, specifically about this. I wanted to know whether ads that form a part of the original broadcast of a specific TV show have been deliberately ommitted for the DStv on Demand service because the service is new, or whether DStv wants advertizers to later pay separately to have their TV commercials inserted into DStv on Demand programming.
''Our subscribers don't necessarily want to watch commercials especially with something like this catch-up service. That is one of the advantages of a service such as DStv on Demand. In the future advertizing might be introduced, but right now you can watch it without TV ads,'' says Jason Probert.
So why is DStv on Demand free (for now)? ''It's all about customer retention,'' says Nolo Letele, group CEO of MultiChoice South Africa. ''In the future we will be launching DStv on Demand for blockbuster movies and that we will charge for. Pay per view if you want to call it that.''
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