by Thinus Ferreira
Nismedia that runs the Glow TV channel on Tuesday afternoon said in a statement that the High Court today ordered eMedia's Openview satellite TV service to restore the channel immediately and to put it back on Openview following an acrimonious channel carriage fight
There's been no immediate statement from Openview so far but a statement will be added here if one is issued.
The drama, followed by an avalanche of anger from Openview viewers began after Openview abruptly dumped Glow TV on 1 October from its service without any prior warning or explanation.
Openview said in a public statement on its Facebook page two weeks ago that it's partnership with Glow TV had come to an end.
Openview gave its customers no warning about the sudden and unexpected removal of Glow TV on 1 October, angering a large group of Openview viewers who publicly vented about Glow TV's abrupt removal and who slammed Openview over both the channel's removal and Openview's lack of communication or any prior warning about it.
The same thing happened in August 2020 when Openview replaced BBC World News with France24 without warning and without communicating to viewers.
Glow TV is run by CEO Nazeer Noormohamed who is also the CEO of the NisMedia Group, who said that NisMedia would be taking Openview to court and that it had a channel carriage agreement to keep Glow TV on Openview until February 2023.
According to insiders, Openview and NisMedia allegedly had a disagreement regarding a separate advertising sales contract that Openview wanted to introduce for Glow TV that NisMedia refused to sign.
That allegedly led to Openview making the decision to terminate the channel carriage of Glow TV.
From the court documents it appears that eMedia decided to dump Glow TV citing a decline in viewership of the channel, that also led to a decrease in advertising revenue.
"We are pleased to inform you, our loyal viewers, that the High Court has today ordered Openview to immediately place Glow TV back on it's platform by latest noon tomorrow, Wednesday 20 October," Glow TV management said in a statement.
"Furthermore the court has stated that whatever our disputes are, these should go for arbitration, as per our contract, which we have also been requesting, instead of OpenView unilaterally switching us off."
"The arbitration process should start by next week and hopefully be resolved by end November. We thank all our loyal viewers for your prayers, support and patience."
NisMedia added that "We ask our StarSat and StarTimes viewers to bear with us, as we repeat the missed shows for the benefit of our OpenView viewers".
MultiChoice dumped Glow TV a few years ago from its DStv satellite pay-TV service but Glow TV remains available on China's StarTimes service operating under the brand name of StarSat in South Africa.
