You're reading it here first.
So says Aletta Alberts, MultiChoice general manager for content, when I asked her about growing fragmentation taking place because of unprecedented channel expansion.
''MultiChoice's philosophy is that more is not necessary better,'' she says. ''A lot of pay TV operators go, 'Oh we have 200 channels', but when you go and look at the quality of the channels, they're really really bad,'' she says. ''The only reason we'll take a second-run channel is because it sits on a lower tier.''
''Our thinking at the moment is very much that we believe we want first run content and premium content for our subscribers,'' says Aletta Alberts. ''We don't want to invest in poor channels. Our philosophy is to have enough channels, but have them all because they're good and provide value to our subscribers - rather than to have channels with stuff that people have seen before.''
''We had to start thinking that its no longer just a TV service that we provide, but how does mobile TV sit next to it, how does on demand TV sit next to it. We have to think of how we target certain product sets to certain consumers and not see our box separate from the content offering but integral to video on demand,'' says Aletta Alberts. ''We also don't make SD boxes anymore. We actually want to promote that people buy a PVR decoder. That is where the future is going.''
