by Thinus Ferreira
eMedia originally started out with the plan last year to launch e.tv's video streaming service under the brand name of Openview+ but changed it some months before it launched last week to eVOD to avoid confusion with Openview and to make a clear distinction that eVOD is its own service and not an add-on or "plus"-extension of its existing Openview satellite TV service.
Last week eMedia Investments launched eVOD as e.tv's homegrown,"freemium" video streaming service, filled with content from its existing and expanding linear e.tv channels set.
e.tv plans to invest R100 million per year to produce 10 eOriginal films and 4 eOriginal TV series annually that will be made available on eVOD first before broadcast to drive sampling and uptake of its streamer.
eVOD joins a crowded video streaming services field in South Africa with ITV Studios and the BBC's BritBox SA that also launched last week, and the existing Showmax from MultiChoice, Netflix SA, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, PCCW Media's VIU, Vodacom Video Play and TelkomONE.
The SABC, far behind in the streaming race, plans to launch its own video streamer, modelled after the BBC's iPlayer, before the end of the current financial year and South African consumers are still waiting for other global streamers like WarnerMedia's HBO Max, along with Disney+, Paramount+, NBCUniversal's Peacock and Discovery+ to launch locally.
Last year, Khalik Sherrif, eMedia Investments CEO, in his CEO report in the 2020 eMedia Holdings annual report, told investors that "by October 2020 the group will launch its own over-the-top (OTT) offering called Openview Plus".
That was the first time that e.tv confirmed that it was working on a video streaming service, and the first time it got a name: Openview+. By May this year eMedia had decided to change the name from Openview+ to eVOD after it had to push out and missed the planned launch date of October 2020.
In its annual financial results for the year that ended 31 March 2021, released in May, eMedia now said that "The new financial year will also see the launch of the group's over-the-top (OTT) service eVOD in July 2021".
TVwithThinus asked Khalik Sherrif about the name change from Openview Plus to eVOD during the virtual Q&A session that e.tv held last week for eVOD.
"Openview remains Openview. Openview is our service of almost 20 channels that's part of our free direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV service. Nothing happens to Openview, it doesn't change its name".
"Openview is the biggest thing to happen in free television in South Africa - we have 2.5 million households in South Africa and growing with a reach of more than 45 000 a month. Openview has some of the best channels in the country - the leading channels on satellite TV come from Openview - eExtra, eMovies."
"This is DTH on satellite. This is a new totally new business. It's not a name change, it's a game change. It's eVOD. This is OTT. This it the eMedia group coming to you on analogue, DTH, DTT and now on OTT. So Openview and eVOD are very separate businesses."
"We think that today Openview is flying but that in a few years eVOD will be our number one," Khalik Sherrif said.
