It's started. The number of TopTV subscribers are growing who are increasingly becoming disillusioned and upset with the amount of repeat TV programming on the channels of On Digital Media's (ODM) new pay TV platform. TopTV's answer is that repeat blocks of programming is simply how pay television works.
Similar to what MultiChoice's DStv has now endured for years, viewers who've signed up to ODM's TopTV are starting to get more vocal about the increasing number of repeats, reruns and rebroadcasts on various TopTV channels, especially the Fox channels such as Fox Retro (TopTV 181), Fox Entertainment (TopTV 180) and Top Crime (TopTV 301). Of course it's now three months since ODM launched TopTV in May which is in pay TV terms approximately the duration of the first repeat window cycle (there's usually another one at six months and again at a year).
''TopTV subscribers are saying 'but I've seen this already', but that's how pay TV works,'' Elouise Kelly, ODM chief marketing officer tells me. ''Repeats over a period of time is how pay TV is structured. It's impossible for any TV channel to be repeats free. Repeats are structured and scheduled so as to make the repeating convenient for you as the viewer. In terms of the Top Movies channels [Top Movies (TopTV 100), Top Movies +2 (TopTV 101) and Top Movies +24 (TopTV 102)] that is why we're repeating the movies to give viewers the opportunity to watch it at their convenience and it works,'' she says.
About TopTV's electronic programme guide (EPG) that started out disastrously at its May launch and is slowly getting better, Elouise Kelly says ''people are saying 'We don't have a physical magazine TV guide. Why can't you send me a monthly magazine with a TV guide?' but we're saying the EPG is your TV guide. And now it works really well. Many people who are now TopTV subscribers did not have pay TV before, so they don't really now yet how informative an on-screen EPG can be,'' she says. ''We're planning on doing a lot of communication in regard to TopTV's EPG and the use of the EPG soon.''
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