Something odd is happening: You're going to be able to buy and watch the complete new Blue Planet II series from the comfort of your home, literally months before the BBC's new Sir David Attenborough narrated natural history series will get broadcast on BBC Earth (DStv 184).
While the United Kingdom, Nordic regions, Europe, Asia and New Zealand are watching Blue Planet II since it started at the end of October, South African and African viewers are not getting the same treatment.
MultiChoice and BBC Worldwide will be showing Blue Planet II - but only sometime in 2018.
This underwater natural history series with pedigree series is not one of MultiChoice and BBC Worldwide's "Express from the
The 7-episode Blue Planet II will definitely be on BBC Earth, but a starting date is not yet known and hasn't been given to the South African press.
Australians will get to see it from February 2018 which is the time I would guess South Africans will start to see it on DStv as well.
It's possible that BBC Worldwide didn't want to start Blue Planet II too late in the year and have it run over the December holidays, but then why didn't it start end of October at the same time as in the United Kingdom where, and when, there was a big BBC media launch?
Here's the odd thing: South African and African viewers won't have to wait until sometime in 2018 to see it on BBC Earth on DStv. You'll be able to see it for Christmas and even before then.
The 3-disc Blue Planet II will be released as DVD and Blu-ray sets on 27 November on Amazon.
When the original Planet Earth came out in 2006 I bought several Blu-ray sets as gifts and one for myself - it was literally the first Blu-ray I ever bought.
I will probably do the same again with Blue Planet II.
It's odd and doesn't make any sense that BBC Worldwide would sell something already on DVD that it hasn't yet properly exploited on its television window because it ends up cannibalising its own potential TV viewership.
On the other hand, that is the crazy rough-and-tumble TV world we inhabit today.
As more and more TV goes today, I will watch BBC Worldwide's Blue Planet II - it's just that the way I'm going to see it will most probably not be as a linear broadcast on pay-TV.
