by Thinus Ferreira
The relationship is over between MultiChoice and Nigeria's Mosunmola Abudu, known as Mo Abudu, with her linear TV channel, EbonyLife TV, that will terminate on DStv on 31 July 2020, and possibly not remain for longer on China's StarTimes and StarSat.
Mo Abudu has teamed up with the Netflix video streaming service that her EbonyLife production company now wants to produce content for, and she also wants to channel content through the video-on-demand service, EbonyLife ON.
EbonyLife will no longer get channel carriage revenue from MultiChoice.
MultiChoice has not made any announcement about the axing of EbonyLife TV from its DStv satellite pay-TV platform in the rest of Africa from the end of July after EbonyLife TV already got dumped in South Africa in June 2018.
In a social media announcement, Mo Abudu said: "Remember when we used to wait a whole week to watch our favourite TV shows? Well, those days are gone forever! Now, we can binge on the whole series if we want to. Therefore, we have decided that EbonyLife TV will no longer be available on DStv from 31 July 2020."
MultiChoice added EbonyLife TV in 2013 on DStv across Africa outside of South Africa, with the channel that was added a year later in 2014 to DStv for South African and Southern African DStv subscribers as well.
MultiChoice then dumped EbonyLife TV dumped it after 4 years at the end of June 2018 in South Africa and several other countries across Southern Africa because of its lackluster viewership and being a ratings failure after the content didn't resonate with pay-TV subscribers.
EbonyLife TV continued to be available as a TV channel on DStv in East and West African countries but the exclusivity clause lapsed and EbonyLife TV that switched and added carriage on StarTimes since August 2018.
With EbonyLife TV getting completely erased from MultiChoice Africa at the end of July 2020, it's not yet clear whether, or for how long, EbonyLife TV will remain available as a linear TV channel on the pay-TV platform of China's StarSat in South Africa and on StarTimes across the rest of Africa.
