The satellite pay-TV operator from StarTimes Media South Africa and On Digital Media (ODM) warned StarSat subscribers at the end of August that it would be terminating the Viasat Life channel after just 9 months on its platform over "contractual reasons" but told TVwithThinus the channel is now remaining.
Instead the international Portuguese version of RTP - the channel from Portugal's public broadcaster - carried on StarSat on channel 370 will be removed from 15 September.
In other changes StarSat has rebranded ST Movies 1 (StarSat 100) to ST Movies Plus; ST Novela E1 (StarSat 127) to ST Novela E; and Star Life OK (StarSat 562) to Star Bharat.
From September StarSat has added the community TV channel SowetoTV (StarSat 488) and TRACE's music channel Trace Africa (StarSat 334) to StarSat'sR99 Special bouquet and the R199 Super bouquet respectively.
Both SowetoTV and Trace Africa are available on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform as well.
StarSat has also added ST Naija, ST Novela E Plus and ST KungFu Plus as further self-packaged channels from StarTimes.
ST Naija (StarSat 324) has been added to the R99 Special bouquet and shows Nigerian and Ghanaian music ranging from Afro-pop, Afro beat, Afro-hip, Hip-hop, R&B, Ragga and Dancehall, including golden classics and international hits.
ST Novela E Plus (StarSat 128) has been added to the R199 Super bouquet. This female-skewed channel shows telenovelas from Mexico, The Philippines and Turkey dubbed into English.
ST KungFu Plus (StarSat 156) has been added to the R199 Super bouquet. ST KungFu Plus shows Chinese Kung Fu as well as China’s landscapes, culture, arts and customs with programmes dubbed into English.
