by Thinus Ferreira
MultiChoice and M-Net have caused an uproar after the pay-TV took away the Big Brother Mzansi pop-up channel from lower-tiered DStv subscribers in South Africa and across Southern Africa who got it for a week as part of an upsell promo period, with the show that added two new housemates.
The hashtag #BringBackChannel198 started trending on Monday on social media after MultiChoice took away the unencoded Big Brother Mzansi pop-up channel from DStv Family and DStv Access subscribers who were given access to the channel since the 5th season of the localised Banijay format reality show started on 23 January.
Big Brother Mzansi as a pop-up channel, with daily and weekly highlights on the Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) channel and is now only available to DStv Premium, DStv Compact Plus and DStv Compact subscribers.
"From
the onset we communicated that Big Brother Mzansi would be available
exclusively on DStv Compact, DStv Compact Plus and DStv Premium," MultiChoice told TVwithThinus in response to a media query.
"In line
with accepted business practice, and as we have done for select content in the
past, we opened up channel 198 to all our customers in Southern Africa to allow
for sampling of the content for a limited period."
A lot of DStv subscribers didn't get that message and are upset that they've now been blocked from continuing to watch the Big Brother Mzansi content they've had access to.
New housemates
Following the abrupt exit of Keamogetswe Motlhale, known as "QV", last week just 48 hours after the debut of Big Brother Mzansi, Red Pepper Pictures and Mzansi Magic added two new housemates on Sunday night instead of a first eviction.
The 27-year of Nthabii is a student-athlete from Pretoria, with the 25-year old Vyno Miller who is a musician from Midrand.
MultiChoice, Mzansi Magic and Red Pepper Pictures have come under fire since the debut of the series for the lack of diversity in the casting of the Big Brother Mzansi housemates, and the over-concentration of contestants from Johannesburg and Pretoria in Gauteng, with very few from other provinces.
