Koowee, the children's channel aimed at preschool kids and which was supplied by M-Net as a kids channel to MultiChoice's DStv seized to exist as a separate channel since yesterday and is henceforth only available as a programming block on the kykNET channels such as kykNET and the new kykNET & kie.
I asked M-Net about the decision to discontinue Koowee, in effect canning it as a channel and continuing it as a branded programming block which ended 4 years after it was launched as a channel on 6 April 2009.
Why was the Koowee channel discontinued?
Even though the Koowee channel no longer exist as from Tuesday 9 April, the much-loved Koowee programming will not disappear from pay-television. In future, shows that used to be on the Koowee channel will be available in Koowee blocks on general entertainment M-Net channels such as kykNET, the new channel kykNET & kie and MagicWorld.
Why this change? As a company, M-Net continuously reviews and researches viewer habits and the consumption of all of our channels. We found that Koowee was mostly watched during the times that will be the future Koowee blocks on the general entertainment channels mentioned, and that having these shows as part of these channels, instead of running a separate TV channel, would still suit the majority of viewers.
While we will be able to give our existing young Koowee viewers aged 0 to 6 their daily dose of kids TV, these wonderful shows will now also be available to a broader audience on different DStv bouquets.
Furthermore, the budget that was allocated to the running of an entire TV channel could now be spent on creating more original productions.
Koowee as a channel is ending exactly 4 years after it started. How would M-Net describe the performance of the channel, did it not grow as the expectation was, or what aspects attributed to the decision to no longer have it remain a stand-alone channel?
M-Net is very proud of the Koowee brand. The Koowee channel was launched 4 years ago with new shows in Afrikaans for preschool audiences, filling a huge content gap.
From there, the shows were dubbed into vernacular, isiZulu and Setswana. We now have a library of previously non-existent kiddies content which can be broadcast on several of our channels.
To what level would this be continuing? The press release mentions Heidi will now be in the Koowee programming block, so it's clear that the Koowee slot will not just be locally generated preschool content anymore. But how much focus and impetus will there still be or remain to create local content for this programming block?
The Koowee block will have different content on different channels - always carefully selected to ensure maximum engagement with the audience.
The duration on the block is longer on kykNET & kie, and that is where you could find content such as Heidi, which has played on kykNET before, but will be new to many kykNET & kie viewers.
Content generation is extremely important to M-Net, a company with 40 plus channels across Africa and our total number of original productions increases substantially year on year.
The content focus sometimes has to shift, however, and in the near future we will be investing more in other original content areas.
For example, in the next year viewers will see many more authentic local television stories that can be enjoyed by different, but broader family audiences.
