Although MSNBC (TopTV 410) will carry 155,5 hours of 2012 Olympic Games coverage from July, the 24 hour news channel will have to find replacement content to substitute for the multiple hours of that sport when it's shown since MSNBC won't be allowed to show it within South Africa.
Whereas sister channel CNBC Africa (DStv 410) previously blacked out brief minutes of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games due to rights issues, the massive bulk of Olympic Games programming MSNBC secured will have to be replaced. Since it's not feasible to have long stretches of a blacked out screen, MSNBC will substitute Olympic Games timeslots with other content for South Africa.
This will be the first time since MSNBC started showing in South Africa on TopTV two years ago from May 2010 that MSNBC won't be a 100% same channel version as the channel is seen in America.
"The Olympics outside of the USA can only be carried by an International Olympic Committee rights holder in that territory," says MSNBC. "We licence the NBC Olympic signal separately. So you won't receive the Olympics feed, but rather it will be replaced by long format programming," says MSNBC.
In South Africa MultiChoice has the pay TV rights for the 2012 Olympic Games for DStv subscribers, and the SABC will show some Olympic Games coverage on SABC2.
