eMedia Investments's free-to-air TV satellite platform, OpenView HD (OVHD) is making its biggest play since the TV service from Platco Digital launched in October 2013, with OpenView HD that will be adding its first real sports channel, Kwesé Free Sports, very soon.
No launch date for the Americentric Kwesé Free Sports is known yet, with OpenView HD only confirming to TVwithThinus that Kwesé Free Sports will be launching on the OpenView HD platform, and that details on the date will be announced later.
OpenView HD has been without any notable sports channels the past few years four and a half years due to the exorbitant costs of sports rights and sports channel carriage costs associated with these distributor agreements.
OpenView HD has been carrying TRACE's less than well received Trace Sport Stars channel that does celebrity profile and puff lifestyle inserts of sports stars but that isn't showing actual sport content and coverage.
Kwesé Free Sports as a TV channel part of a larger TV channel bouquet s currently carried on Kwesé TV from Econet Media in several Southern African countries outside of South Africa.
It's not been seen in South Africa since Econet Media and Kwesé TV doesn't have a licence to operate a direct-to-home (DTH) pay-TV satellite service in South Africa.
Kwesé Free Sports is largely an Americentric sports channel. Kwesé TV has American basketball rights, acquired some boxing rights, and also signed a collaboration agreement in January 2017 with ESPN.
ESPN and some of its channels was available on MultiChoice's DStv until ESPN decided to abruptly flee and dump Africa in July 2013 during corporate downsizing, but has since last year tried to return to Africa with its American sports content.
NCAA American football and basketball is shown on Kwesé Free Sports along with ESPN shows like SportsCenter, with some Kwesé TV content, most notably boxing and American basketball programming, that has also been made available on a selective basis to some South African community TV channels like Soweto TV (DStv 251 / StarSat 488) and 1KZN (DStv 261 / StarSat 486).
Kwesé Free Sports also has some coverage of the Premier League soccer, Formula One, some international cricket, the Aviva Premiership Rugby, The Spanish Copa Del Rey, Brazilian soccer and the Extreme Fighting Championship.
Adding Kwesé Free Sports will bolster OpenView HD's offering.
The channel addition will give the Kwesé TV and Kwesé Free Sports brands exposure in South Africa, while giving OpenView HD the platform's first real sports content - although mostly American.
That will be an attractive lure for OpenView HD's audience, especially male viewers, as well as others since it will have sports content that's not available to SuperSport on DStv's platform, or on StarSat.
