by Thinus Ferreira
MultiChoice has added the Toonami kids channel as a pop-up channel to DStv and is enlarging its DStv BoxOffice movie rental selection as it also dropped the price to R25 per rental during South Africa's national lockdown period.
The Toonami kids animation channel that has been available in some African countries on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service for the past 3 years has been added as a pop-up channel to DStv in South Africa from Sunday 29 March 2020.
It's part of the pay-TV service's ongoing expanding content offer during the global Covid-19 novel coronavirus pandemic which is affecting South Africa as well.
Toonami, "The Home of Superheroes" channel, is carried and broadcast as a high definition (HD) channel although some of the older animation series on it is in standard definition (SD) since it was produced before the advent of HD.
Toonami, supplied by WarnerMedia which is also responsible for Cartoon Network and Boomerang, has been added on the mystical DStv channel 300 - the most prime and prized kids channel number at the start of the kids channel numbers block where DStv never hosted a TV channel before, with CN starting at 301.
Toonami targets kids between the ages of 8 and 12 and will run for 24-hours per day and has series ranging from DC Comics' Batman, Superman, The Green Lantern, Young Justice and The Justice League, as well as Teen Titans.
"Plenty of pulse-racing, action-packed films have frequently been specially packaged for our African audiences, making Toonami the go-to destination for action and animation enthusiasts of all ages," says Aletta Alberts, MultiChoice's content strategy boss.
"Toonami is an amazing movie channel that will screen a host of animated and action feature films every day from Monday to Sunday at 20:00 and Saturday mornings at 08:30, showcasing popular superheroes' heroic acts and deed in movies like Green Lantern Emerald Knights, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, Batman: Monster Mayhem and All-Star Superman".
"The MultiChoice Group remains committed to delivering the best entertainment experience to our customers by constantly offering them more choice, great value and great content," says Aletta Alberts.
Besides films Toonami shows episodes from Justice League Unlimited, Justice League, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman: The Animated Series and Green Lantern: The Animated Series.
Guillaume Coffin, WarnerMedia Africa vice president of commercial and business development, says that Toonami will run until 30 April on DStv.
DStv BoxOffice expands
MultiChoice has also quietly expanded the number of films on offer at any given time on its DStv BoxOffice pay-per-view movie rental service to 40 of the latest films.
MultiChoice also reduced the price of these fresh-from-the-cinema movies to R25 for the period of South Africa's national lockdown.