by Thinus Ferreira
South Africa's M-Net (DStv 101) pay-TV channel and Canal+'s MultiChoice continue to lose content it in an ongoing erosion it has no control over with the United States' annual Emmy Awards which is switching to Amazon Prime Video.
With the Emmy Awards moving away from American broadcasters who made turns to air it, M-Net in Randburg has absolutely no control over the latest piece of content loss.
M-Net has perennially been the South African TV channel showing America's Academy Awards and the Emmy Awards.
DStv already lost access to the Oscars' red carpet coverage when NBCUniversal and MultiChoice dumped the E! channel in favour of the lower-tiered reality channel Bravo.
M-Net has also stayed quiet, although it has also lost the Academy Awards already, which announced in December that it is moving to YouTube worldwide from 2029.
Now the Emmy Awards is moving to Amazon Prime Video, with Amazon having bought the global rights to show it for the 6 years on its video streaming service.
Notably, the Emmy Awards will stream for free on Amazon Prime Video and not require a subscription.
"We timed it perfectly so that all our deals came up collectively and it would be free and clear," says Cris Abrego, TV academy chairman.
"The broadcasters' wheel deal and the international deals - all that has ended, and we put it all into one bundle, and it sits now within this deal at Amazon Prime Video."
Mike Hopkins, head of Amazon Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, says the Emmy Awards are about global stars, not just United States stars "and we think we can have a great impact on celebrating this medium and these storytellers globally around the world through the Emmys, in ways that it might be harder to do when you're on a US broadcaster".
"We'll make the Primetime Emmys available, front and centre on Amazon Prime Video."
