TelkomONE adds the W-Sport channel covering women's sport with 3 000 hours of content per year, including 1 000 hours of live events.

by Thinus Ferreira

The W-Sport channel focusing on female-led sports has now been added by Telkom's TelkomONE video streaming service for South Africa with W-Sport that will cover women's sport with 3 000 hours of content per year that will include 1 000 hours of live events and 300 hours of football matches from various leagues in the world.

The W-Sport channel that started in July 2021 and launched across sub-Saharan Africa in 16 countries, offers a mix of premium live football, basketball, motorsports, volleyball, cycling and triathlon content. 

W-Sport plans to show a portfolio of live football content with up to 7 live football matches per week with England's Barclays Women's Super League, Germany's Frauen Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A, the Netherlands Vrouwen Eredivisie, Australia's W-League and the recent ICC tournament that will be shown on W-Sport in sub-Saharan Africa.

W-Sport will also carry the FIBA 3×3 Women's Series and the best 3×3 national team competitions, the W Series all female single seater motorsport championship, the Super League Triathlon, Extreme E, Athletes Unlimited Volleyball, Softball and Lacrosse from the United States, the UCI World Tour event Paris/Roubaix and Lioness Boxing that will all feature live on W-Sport.

Kelly Butler, W-Sport CEO, says "W-Sport's vision is to be the global leader in women's sports broadcasting and to passionately champion equality and diversity. W-Sport's content will entertain, engage and inspire audiences and the next generation of young female athletes and players".

"The significant development of and engagement with women's sport in recent times makes this such an exciting, relevant and timely launch. This momentum offers an opportunity to develop a new broadcast proposition – W-Sport captures that opportunity. We look forward to adding further carriage, content and commercial partners in the coming months."

"Our content will entertain, engage and inspire audiences and we are very proud of this launch association and partnership with TelkomONE".

According to W-Sport's market research, women's sport is deemed more inspiring, progressive, family orientated and less money orientated than men's sport.

Besides TelkomONE now adding W-Sport for South Africa, the channel was added by Azam TV, a pay-TV operator based in Tanzania, as a linear TV channel that is already available in Botswana, Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. 

TelkomONE says that 84% of sports fans are interested in female-led sports.

"The pace of change in women's sports necessitated that we launch W-Sport sooner than later," says Wanda Mkhize, executive smart home & content at Telkom.

"With female sporting role models like gymnast Simone Biles achieving much greater mainstream exposure for both their sporting prowess and courageous social stances, it was time for W-Sport to help inject equality and diversity into local sports."

"We knew something had to be done when a FIFA Women's World Cup football match drew a paltry 1.2 million viewership audience on satellite."

"With the 2021 Confederation of African Football’s Women’s Championship League on the way, the recent launch of W-Sport on TelkomONE with its fresh perspective on women's sport is just perfect timing," Wanda Mkhize says.

"TelkomONE is very pleased to be the first to offer South African viewers the first multi-platform service devoted to women's sport. Just 5% of traditional media coverage is devoted to women's sport."

TOLDJA! Setanta Africa launches on TopTV as a new action sports channel with a focus on combat sports.

With a total lack of any pre or any other actual communication about it, TopTV has suddenly launched the new Setanta Action (TopTV 202) action sports channel ... today.

TV with Thinus broke the news about the channel's name HERE yesterday.

That was after I reported on Thursday HERE that TopTV said in a one-liner in another statement that a new action sports channel is coming to the struggling South African pay-TV operator.

Neither I nor several other national TV critics in South Africa or publications received any advance warning, invite to a hastily arrange launch event, or any information or press information about the coming launch of Setanta Action.

After requesting information this morning, TopTV responded with a press statement, saying "TopTV has announced the addition of action sports channel Setanta Action". According to TopTV, the channel from the Setanta Sports stable, "will start broadcasting from Friday 2 November on channel 202.

In the press release TopTV sent after request, it describes Setanta Action as "a new 24/7 sports action channel with a particular focus on combat sports. Programming will also include wrestling, action series, action magazine format shows that feature fitness and exercise, judo, taekwondo, karate and other extreme sports".

I can't give you a high res channel logo nor a schedule of what shows or specific programming is on Setanta Action; none was issued or received by me by whoever was supposed to do this.

"The increasingly popular mixed martial arts (MMA) sporting code is considered to be one of the world's fastest growing sports, with new organisations springing up around the world, including here in South Africa," says Kelly Butler, the CEO of Setanta Africa who is quoted in the press statement.

"The decision to launch a channel dedicated to action sports has resulted from the enthusiastic response to the MMA and kickboxing content that has been screened on the Setanta Africa channel, which is also available on the TopTV platform.

Setanta Action will try and target a predominantly young male audience, aged 18 – 34.

In the press release Ian Woodrow, the vice president of channels at TopTV also weighs in. "While our sports offering is limited in terms of mainstream sports, we have targeted various niche channels with a specific audience in mind, and these are performing very well for TopTV."

"As such, we are delighted to welcome the Setanta Action channel to our sports mix that includes Setanta Africa, Fuel TV (an extreme sports channel), Eurosport News and MUTV (the 24-hour football channel of Manchester United). We are confident that its focus on mixed martial arts, kickboxing and boxing will attract a new audience of viewers to TopTV."