The limited-run M-Net Holiday Channel, or m199, offered in previous years, won't be returning to DStv at the end of this year.

The M-Net Holiday channel - the limited-run TV channel on MultiChoice's DStv platform which M-Net supplied the past few years (with a gap one year when it wasn't on) - will not be continued.

MultiChoice feels that subscribers have access to a wide enough selection and offering of viewing during the holiday time on existing TV channels on the bouquet.

The past few years the M-Net Holiday channel (renamed simply m199 when it returned in 2010 after an absence in 2009) won't return in 2012 to run from mid-December to mid-January 2013.

Last week I asked MultiChoice what the prospects are of m199 returning, after readers started asking me.

"MultiChoice will not be offering a holiday channel any longer as the new M-Net Movies Showcase channel and Universal Channel will cater for all programmes that were previously covered on the holiday channel," says the pay-TV operator.

BREAKING. No special, limited-run M-Net holiday TV channel like m199 coming to DStv this year.

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It could be that the Gringe stole it, but I can exclusively break the news that there won't be any special limited-run, holiday channel from M-Net this year.

DStv that ran a special catch-up encore channel provided by M-Net to MultiChoice in the past with the name M-Net Holiday, which then disappeared for a year and came back renamed as m199 last year, won't be happening this year, sources tell me exclusively.

The reason is somewhat technical but, explains an insider, has mostly to do with the ''runs'' in trade-speak of shows and their seasons. Distributors license and broadcasters buy a set of ''runs'' or a number of times a show can be repeated. M-Net Holiday or m199 was a self-compiled channel that would start in mid-December and essentially be another repeat window of shows already broadcast recently.

Now. Keep in mind all those shows that moved and shifted at the beginning of the year from M-Net Action (DStv 106) to M-Net Series (DStv 110), and from M-Net Series (DStv 110) to Vuzu (DStv 123), and from M-Net (DStv 101) to Vuzu (DStv 123). Keep in mind that there is M-Net HD (DStv 170), shows that's on M-Net and all these other M-Net channels loaded onto DStv's Catch-Up service; shows now available online on the Catch-Up service. All of these technically count towards the overall package of runs of shows, which now also ''eats'' at the runs.

Additionally all the runs are mostly anyway used by M-Net HD and M-Net Series, and several of the shows that moved to Vuzu this year have become part of a very different rotation pattern than before, further complicating matters.

The end result? Not really enough shows that can really be bundled and shown with another run left - unless M-Net spends a lot more money overall, or protracted distributor wrangling takes place.

Also keep in mind MultiChoice's limited satellite broadband capacity for the time being as a separate factor that also has bearing on this issue. Keep in mind that MultiChoice launched several new TV channels this year. MultiChoice will still be launching one more new TV channel before the end of the year. It all took bandwidth. So quite a confluence of reasons as to why there won't be a holiday channel from M-Net this year.

BREAKING. MultiChoice and M-Net working on bringing the M-Net Holiday channel back, starting from 1 December 2010.

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I can exclusively reveal that MultiChoice and M-Net are working on bringing back the M-Net Holiday channel towards the end of the year, probably for December and the first half of January after an absence of a year.

Sources within M-Net tell me plans are underway to have the M-Net Holiday channel run again this year on DStv, after it wasn't on the air during the end of 2009. M-Net Holiday will most likely again this year - as in previous years when the channel ran - broadcast popular TV series and blockbuster movies in a stripped schedule over the course of a month and a half, starting on December 1, 2010.