by Thinus Ferreira
There are two small yet very big changes on the new DStv Explora Ultra remote control: Two of the buttons look different and are quite indicative of how DStv is stepping back in order to take a huge leap forward.
MultiChoice is busy releasing its new next-generation DStv Explora Ultra in retail at a recommended retail price of R2 499.
This new DStv Explora Ultra decoder gives DStv subscribers who might want to subscribe to it as well, or already have it and want to access it, a portal to Netflix South Africa.
MultiChoice will soon very likely also offer similar access to Amazon Prime Video and in future likely also other subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) like the Walt Disney Company's Disney+, WarnerMedia's HBO Max, ViacomCBS's Paramount+, Discovery's to be launched new streamer and others that will all eventually reside on such a set-top box.
This is how the DStv Explora remote control has looked until now:
A new blue "home" button
Pressing this blue button, like before, takes the DStv subscriber directly to the home page of the DStv interface - one where there will now be the option to access and/or subscribe to third-party video streamers.
MultiChoice hasn't said this, but there are clearly 2 reasons for removing the word "DStv" from this button and replacing it with a more generic "home" icon:
Firstly, MultiChoice literally wants the DStv subscriber to no longer necessarily think of "going to DStv" or accessing DStv, in as much as MultiChoice wants the video consumer to think of it as "going home".
Pressing the home icon button, instead of pressing a "DStv" button, should give you the feeling and the consumer experience of "I'm home where all my stories are collected for me to access".
Secondly, because MultiChoice is giving more and different access to more things it is "stepping back" in order to step forward.
In a seemingly counter-intuitive way, but in a way that works very successfully, DStv now gets to look bigger by looking less interested in being seen in a "small" way on a button. DStv is now much bigger than a button.
Through removing the word "DStv" from the button (the DStv brand name is still black-embossed at the bottom of the remote control) MultiChoice is sending a signal that it is becoming a video utility.
MultiChoice is no longer as concerned whether you watch DStv specifically, or DStv Catch Up, or Netflix SA or in future Amazon Prime Video or Disney+. It just wants you as a pay-TV customer to engage with all of the wonderful potential content through its environment.
MultiChoice sees itself as being bigger than "DStv" and able to offer more than a single this or a single that service - it wants to be the overall substrate on which, and through which, all of the various video moss grow.
Like Daniel Clamp says in Gremlins 2, "You make a place for things ... things come", or like the voice whispered to Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams from the cornfield: "If you build it, they will come".
MultiChoice wants to be The Field and is building it.
A new white "Apps" button
Above the "DStv" or now home icon blue button, the black "Showmax" button has been replaced with a white button.
This now-white button no longer carries the word Showmax and the Showmax brand symbol on it but now has a windows/grid-icon with the word "Apps".
Pressing this button no longer takes the DStv subscriber to Showmax, but to the newly designed SVOD carousel interface, the little storefront or store window where MultiChoice will display all of the various video streaming services it has on offer and has partnered with.
While Showmax will always remain MultiChoice's video streamer firstborn and therefore have a special place in its heart, the rival, highly successful "frenemies" are now equally welcome on the same faceplate.
MultiChoice no longer wants to highlight a specific preference for a user and come across as if it's playing favourites between them - whoever wants to come and video play will now be included in the "multi-choice" offered to the DStv subscriber.