On Digital Media (ODM) running the struggling South African satellite pay-TV service TopTV is possibly getting ready to dump its own Top Crime (TopTV 301) channel and to add Fox Crime - but TopTV isn't willing to talk about it or to give answers to a growing number of extremely irate TopTV subscribers about months' old promises of new replacement channels for axed ones.
Asked if TopTV is planning on axing its Top Crime channel, and asked if Fox Crime is going to be added to the pay-TV operator's channel bouquet, TopTV declined comment.
Top Crime - regarded as possibly the worst of the self-compiled and self branded "Top" channels on TopTV's bouquet when it comes to the unending recycling of stale content over the past three years - could be the next "Top" channel facing the chop.
Top Junior and Top Movies+24 were both suddenly slashed in April - a move the Woodmead based pay-TV operator called "an unavoidable exercise". No replacement channels have so far been added.
Now Fox International Channels Africa (FIC Africa) and On Digital Media (ODM) are in talks about possibly adding Fox Crime to TopTV as well - the same new channel supplied by FIC Africa and starting on 9 July on MultiChoice's DStv platform.
Fox Crime however would be extremely similar to Top Crime. Top Crime has been filled with old library crime and adventure series content which TopTV has been repeating over and over for the past three years in a loop, with hardly any new content added since Top Crime launched in May 2010.
Fox Crime - although similar in channel proposition as Top Crime - will however also have some first-run new content as well as premium content in the form of the new TV series The Bridge. Episodes of The Bridge will be shown in South Africa two days after its shown in America.
The addition of Fox Crime to TopTV - if negotiations work out and the channel is added - would actually be the replacement of Fox Retro which just disappeared from TopTV's channel bouquet without any prior warning.
However ... if Top Crime is to be axed in the process, it might be perceived by some subscribers as if Fox Crime is substituting for Top Crime. The reality would however be that TopTV subscribers are then one channel more short.
In fact, TopTV subscribers are still waiting for replacement channels since the end of 2012. TopTV subscribers are incensed about months' old and now hollow promises from TopTV to find and replace channels such as Showtime, Star and Silver when Turner Broadcasting pulled their channels from TopTV. TopTV is also refusing to talk about or address the issue.
TopTV, although in business rescue, is still a running business, but remains silent about plans.
Will TopTV be ending the Top Crime channel and why? Is Fox Crime being added to TopTV - and if it is added, does it replace Fox Retro or will Top Crime be removed and Fox Crime be that channel's replacement?
A lot of viewers are wondering what happened to the replacement channels TopTV promised replacements for. TopTV subscribers are saying its been months and they still have to pay the same monthly subscription but they've been getting less content than before?
All of these current and pressing questions were asked of TopTV in a media enquiry. The pay-TV operator isn't answering any of these.
