Launch of SABC's video streaming service pushed to next financial year, delayed to sometime before March 2023.

by Thinus Ferreira 

The SABC has pushed out the launch of its own video streaming service with the South African public broadcaster that will no longer make its deadline of this financial year and has now postponed the launch to somewhere before the end of March 2023.

As part of its video streamer plans, the SABC also is redeveloping the online offering of all of its TV channels.

The SABC's delay in launching its own over-the-top (OTT) service before the end of March 2022 means that it will be pipped at the post by another two streaming services that will now launch in South Africa before the SABC launches its player, while existing video streamers will further entrench their positions in a rapidly expanding market.

While the SABC has postponed its streamer launch, modelled on the BBC's successful iPlayer, The Walt Disney Company plans to launch its highly-anticipated Disney+ video streaming service in South Africa anytime from June this year.

Meanwhile, Paramount last month confirmed that it will be bringing Paramount+ to South Africa and the rest of the African continent in early-2023.

South African video consumers already have access to a range of video streamers showing growth but from a small base, ranging from Netflix SA and Amazon Prime Video, to MultiChoice's Showmax, Apple TV+, VIU, Vodacom Video Play, BritBox, Acorn TV, TelkomONE, eMedia's eVOD, Marquee TV, PrideTV, CineMagic and some other smaller players.

Also still to launch in South Africa are WarnerMedia's HBO Max that will also come to South Africa once existing HBO content contracts with MultiChoice and M-Net run out and lapse, Discovery+, and NBCUniversal's Peacock - all of which are available to overseas pay-TV consumers already on for instance Sky in the United Kingdom.

In his latest speech at a SABC CxO conference, Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO, revealed that the SABC's video streaming service, modelled after the BBC's successful iPlayer, will now only come to market before the end of the broadcaster's next financial year - meaning before the end of March 2023 - and no longer the end of the SABC's current financial year.

"In our next financial year we'll launch an even more full HD TV channels, we'll go live with our own over-the-top-platform, and we'll also redevelop our online offerings for all our television channels as well as our radio stations," Madoda Mxakwe said.

The SABC currently provides some of its locally-produced entertainment content on MultiChoice DStv streaming service, licenses some series to VIU, and places some of it on YouTube.

Various permutations of the SABC's linear TV and radio channels are currently carried by MultiChoice on DStv, StarTimes' StarSat and eMedia's Openview, with different collections of linear SABC TV channels streaming and SABC on-demand content available on the streaming services of TelkomONE and VIU.

In March 2021, Ian Plaatjes, SABC chief operating officer (COO), told TVwithThinus about the SABC's video streamer plans that "Our strategy is to have a multi-OTT presence and we are not going to be competing with others".

He said "We are going to be launching our own and it will be during this financial year. We will be going to market pretty soon with our own but it will be complementary to the other OTT providers as well."

In August 2021, Bongumusa Makhathini, SABC board chairperson, in a SABC News interview reiterated that the SABC planned to have its own video streaming service up and running in South Africa before the end of its current financial year which is 31 March 2022.

"We are going to be launching our own and it will be during this financial year. We will be going to market pretty soon with our own but it will be complementary to the other OTT providers as well," Bongumusa Makhathini said at the time.

TVwithThinus asked the SABC in a media query why the launch of its video streaming has now been pushed out by what could be as much as a year, what factors contributed to it, and how work is progressing on its streaming service.

"The SABC can confirm that in the next fiscal, the corporation will launch more TV channels, which will also be available on its own over-the-top (OTT) platform," says Gugu Ntuli, the SABC's group executive for corporate affairs and marketing.

"The SABC is cognizant of the fact that launching an OTT platform is a sizable project with many complex technical and content requirements and considerations for the public service broadcaster."

"The SABC chose to delay the implementing of the OTT platform to firm up its requirements, strategy, business case and prepare the environment for rapid deployment," she says.

e.tv launches its eVOD video streaming service.

by Thinus Ferreira

e.tv has launched the South African broadcaster's homegrown video streaming service, eVOD (e-Video-On-Demand) as a so-called freemium streamer with over 2 500 hours of content at launch, including different premium subscription tiers for exclusive content.

e.tv plans to spend at least R100 million per year on creating brand-new local content for eVOD that will include 4 eOriginal series and 10 original South African feature films, and the plan is to add the streaming of live linear TV channels on eVOD in the future.

As e.tv is a free-to-air commercial broadcaster, eVOD offers thousands of hours of free library content that is available after a customer registers an eVOD profile.

eVOD also offers daily (R5 for 24 hours), weekly (R15) and monthly (R29.99) subscriptions, giving a viewer access to all content and offering more exclusive content including a first-run eOriginal movie, and access to the next week's 5 episodes of e.tv's top local prime soaps and telenovelas in a functionality called FastForward (FF).

eVOD subscribers can for instance watch the first episode of the new local drama series Is'phindiselo before broadcast, as well as Atlantis, the first eVOD Original movie in which a young woman sets out to find her missing brother involved in a gang and starring Bronte Snel, Maurice Carpede, Chumani Pan, Keenan Arrison and Ettienne Gertse.

eVOD customers can pay with debit or credit cards, airtime or partner billing with e.tv that has partnered with MTN and with MTN customers who register for eVOD who get 4GB data free monthly until 31 January 2022 that can only be used to watch eVOD content.

eVOD is available to download as an app for mobile devices on the Google Play and Apple's App Store, and is online at www.evod.co.za as a browser experience for computers. 

e.tv's existing "e On Demand" website service where people could watch Catch Up episodes of shows, will now redirect users to the eVOD website.

eVOD launches in South Africa just a day before BritBox SA that is launching on 6 August with the country that is adding two new video streaming services in an already crowded video-on-demand space and where the South African public broadcaster plans to launch its own SABC VOD service, modelled on the BBC's Player, before the end of the year.

Besides eVOD and BritBox SA, South African consumers already have access to MultiChoice's Showmax, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ that are all competing with PCCW Media's VIU, Vodacom Video Play and TelkomONE. 

Consumers are still waiting for other global streamers like WarnerMedia's HBO Max, along with Disney+, Paramount+, NBCUniversal's Peacock and Discovery+ to launch locally.

"We decided to meet our audience in places where they will be at - so if not on the TV set, on the mobile, or on the PC, and eventually they will get the eVOD content again on TV," said Khalik Sherrif, eMedia Holdings CEO, the eVOD virtual launch event on Wednesday night.

"We have a huge following in South Africa through e.tv and all the other TV channels and we understand in our business that our customers and audiences are changing on a daily basis these days, getting content through means that we didn't conceive of 10 years ago - the TV has evolved from analogue to DTH to DTT and the last couple of years we went to OTT."

Multiple new eOriginal series, films planned

Marlon Davids, e.tv managing director said that "the investment in the local broadcasting industry will be R100 million per year - that's what our investment is going to be - and it will include at least 4 eOriginal series for eVOD, as well as at least 10 local movies per year".

"Atlantis is available to watch on eVOD and up until the end of March 2022 next year we will launch another 4 movies, and possibly 2 more. In a full financial year there will always be 10 movies that we will launch."

Excluding Atlantis that is already on eVOD, the other eOriginal films will be available on a T-VOD basis on eVOD as a transactional video-on-demand offering.

"This means that eVOD users will pay a to-be-determined once-off fee to watch a movie because it won't be available on TV or in cinemas and will be territory premieres," Marlon Davids said. The price for T-VOD films has not been decided yet.

"A big part of eVOD will be Catch Up, so users will be able to watch last night's episode of series like Durban Gen or House of Zwide or even the Turkish telenovelas dubbed into Afrikaans."

"In that space we know that viewers are obsessed with those shows like Gebroke Harte, so we will also offer FastForward for Elif to see the next 5 episodes that will still be broadcast on the eExtra channel."

"Also some of these Turkish drama series that haven't been on e.tv channels before will now premiere on eVOD even before it goes to one of our linear TV channels."

"After Is'phindiselo our 13-part series that has already been renewed for a second 13-episode season, we will launch another one towards mid-September called Housewives, that is in production."

Plan to move e.tv content to eVOD

e.tv told TVwithThinus that its existing shows like soaps of which Catch Up rights have been licensed to MultiChoice's DStv Now will remain accessible on that pay-TV provider's streaming service but e.tv's content is no longer available on VIU and has been moved to eVOD.

"As our contractual obligations ride themselves out, we're consolidating our content on our OTT service which is the logical thing to do," Khalik Sherrif said.

"We are introducing what is the mass audience of South Africa to content that is now going to be streamed. As data becomes cheaper, the numbers will grow. But we had to be in this business. We had to start somewhere."

EXPLAINER. How and why MultiChoice by adding video streamers to its DStv offering is finally pivoting into becoming a pay-TV Sweets from Heaven.

by Thinus Ferreira

With MultiChoice that is adding two digital streaming services to its broader DStv offering - and likely even more in future - it is signaling that it has decided to now take the same route as other traditional pay-TV services elsewhere in the world and is evolving into what is called a "super-aggregator": In essence MultiChoice is turning into Sweet from Heaven, the TV version.

With the explosion of video streaming services, from global and local services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, VIU, Apple TV+, Vodacom Video Play and others already available in South Africa, as well as Disney+ and HBO Max not available yet, the customer or video content consumer has started to quickly become overwhelmed.

The pay-TV operator - in this case MultiChoice - wants to "simplify" this and bring a type of order to the "chaos" of multi-choice.

Imagine this in terms of consumer psychology: You like your very specific dish washing liquid. You buy Sunlight because you are brand loyal for whatever reason.

But beyond buying Sunlight you choose to walk into a Pick n Pay to go get it there because it's convenient, or closest, or cleanest or is cheaper there because of some special offer. Brand loyalty overlaps secondary brand loyalty and ease of use.

MultiChoice wants to be the "place" or become the place - the Pick n Pay if you will - where you shop for your streaming services each with their own icon tiles which you can subscribe and unsubscribe to, paying one monthly bill with one overall amount.

When you walk into a Sweets from Heaven you see multiple transparent perspex boxes with scoops and a whole range of different sweets and candy in all colours, shapes and tastes. You scoop and scoop and scoop and weigh and pay one rand amount, instead of having to buy the sweets at different places, walking everywhere, and doing different transactions.

Not always, but you also likely take more than what you would have buying one type of sweet individually simply because it's there and the human being like the idea of seeing abundance.

By becoming a super-aggregator - aggregating "blocks" of streaming services in the same way as it bundles linear TV channels - MultiChoice is lessening the consumer friction for a viewer to engage with this content: both in finding it, choosing it and paying for it.

Here is the important thing: Within the "paying for TV" ecosystem" MultiChoice wants to control what we call the user experience or the consumer relationship, while the individual streaming service gets the scale - the access to the large group of consumers.

In other words, and again using Sunlight in Pick n Pay: MultiChoice provides and controls the shopping experience and provides the aisle, the shelf (display), the discount or promo and makes it all feel clean, safe and desirable to go there, while the manufacturer of the specific product gets access to a large consumer group and gets to sell more of that product (scale).


Add-ons to take and drop
The link-up between traditional pay-TV operators and video streaming services are win-win for both, which is why operators from Comcast in America, to Sky in the United Kingdom, Canal+ in France and many others who have already added Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ and other streamers, are racing to tie up more deals with more so-called over-the-top (OTT) services.

These OTT players are what we call "additive".

They don't and can't replace the traditional pay-TV experience, especially when it comes to live sports, news and other so-called "appointment television" that large groups of people watch at the same time, but they "add" more premium and unique content to the overall TV ecosystem - content that viewers want to dip in- and out of.

For the traditional pay-TV operator that has millions of existing subscribers it works to add video streamers because it means the subscriber stays on their platform and continues to flick through their carousel, their user interface and through that pick and choose content to engage with.

Besides rich viewer behaviour data and a cut of the income depending on the individual distributor deal, the pay-TV operator also manages, maintains and keeps the primary viewer experience.

The video streamer also wins and gets access to scale - the millions of people who might sample and sign up and use the service, thereby increasing their revenue and their individual subscriber numbers.

What happens now is that a traditional pay-TV subscribers - just like with a cellphone bill - will choose and add on a monthly basis one or more specific streamers just like with a call-minutes or a data bundle. At the end of the month they pay just one amount going off the bank account, instead of three or four.

Subscribers, in this case a DStv subscriber, will choose Netflix for example, binge-watch a specific buzz-worthy series they've heard about through content discovery, and then unsubscribe. They might also decide to stay subscribed, or even forget to unsubscribe (passive income) - meaning more revenue for both pay-TV operator and the OTT player.

The same subscriber, if they unsubscribe, might next month sample or go to another streaming service for another series on that service.

While the consumer in a sense dip in and out and "curate" their own monthly content stream as they tailor-make and chop and change their own collections, the pay-TV operator smiles and the OTT players smile because everyone get more revenue than what they wouldn't otherwise have gotten.

While the individual consumer matrix within the group changes, every OTT service on the pay-TV platform will have a constant broad group of consumers using it at any given time.


The irony in multi-choice
Don't think it's just grandma with the remote control who is struggling to find her TV story.

Multiple global studies in TV research just the past 3 years have shown that more and more viewers are struggling to find the content they want to watch and what they might be interested in - both on linear TV, but especially with streaming services.

It's also not old people - it's everybody!

Viewers, including young viewers, feel more and more overwhelmed by the growth in choices, the number of services available, and are confused and feeling more and more lost because the astronomical growth in the volume of TV content also leads to more complexity in terms of trying to find and access it.

For the ordinary consumer, having to keep track of, and subscribing separately to several pay-TV or streaming services has become too much and keeps getting worse and getting more difficult and time-consuming. It means that the user experience is poor.

Now, a lot of the different keys that unclock different things in your "viewing home" are starting to be placed back on one key chain again.

By becoming a super-aggregator the traditional pay-TV services, like MultiChoice, offers the shop and the shelf, can provide a search and recommendations functionality, can track user viewing behaviour and offer a single point of billing in a single currency.

Welcome to the start of South African pay-TV's Sweets from Heaven era.


ALSO READ: MultiChoice to add Netflix and Amazon Video Prime as video streamers, now reaches 19.5 million subscribers.
ALSO READ: MultiChoice wants to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for TV content, next DStv Explora will provide access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video OTT streamers.
ALSO READ: This is how MultiChoice changed its 2019/2020 financial results presentation in which it first revealed that it is adding Netflix and Amazon Prime Video ... and then deleted and altered its presentation.

South Africa will remain the revenue money-spinner in Africa for video streaming services with 3.46 million subscribers by 2024, followed by Nigeria.

The revenues from over-the-top video streaming services in sub-Saharan Africa will rise from $223 million in 2018 to more than $1 billion by 2024, according to new research from Digital TV Research - with almost half of that coming from South Africa.

About 40% of over-the-top (OTT) revenues will be from South Africa, the continent's most sophisticated TV market, followed by Nigeria with 22%.

Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) is the dominant model, projected to bring in revenues of $782 million by 2024 from 10.2 million subscribers, up from 3 million at the end of 2018.

South Africa where SVOD services like Netflix South Africa, Showmax and Amazon Prime Video are leading the charge in OTT growth, will be in the lead with 3.46 million subscribers, followed by Nigeria with 2.56 million subscribers, together accounting for 59% of sub-Saharan Africa's entire SVOD subscriber base.

The top 5 services accounted for 87% of sub-Saharan Africa's SVOD subscriptions by the end of 2018, with this proportion to be retained throughout the forecast period.

Netflix is the biggest platform at present, with 45% of SVOD subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa. This is projected to fall slightly by 2024 to 39% (4 million subscribers).

Netflix will take 64% of the region’s SVOD revenues by 2024 – similar to the 2018 proportion.

Simon Murray at Digital TV Research, says "Market dynamics have shifted over the last year. Despite its relatively high prices, Netflix has consolidated its market leadership. There have been many fewer platform launches, especially on a country level. Furthermore, several multinational players appear to have reined in their ambitions."

New study finds consumers are confused by streaming services; more would drop pay-TV if they knew what was available and could stream live programming, especially sports.

New American research from a TV consumer study has found that consumers are confused by streaming services (so-called over-the-top or OTT operators like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc.), don't know what programming, and live programming, are available or where; and that more would dump their pay-TV subscriptions and switch to streaming services if more live programming were available, especially sports.

Since the United States has a more sophisticated and more mature TV market and consumer market, it's easy to postulate that the findings of the study by Telaria and Adobe, entitled "Inside the Minds of Cord-Cutters and Cable-Keepers", would be true - and even more so - for South Africa and Africa.

South African consumers and pay-TV subscribers are still getting used to nascent streaming services ranging from Naspers' Showmax run by MultiChoice that also provides the DStv satellite direct-to-home (DTH) pay-TV service, Netflix operating Netflix South Africa, Amazon Prime Video, Cell C black, and a few other small service.

While streaming service uptake in South Africa is rapidly growing, it's still from a very small base with streamers like Showmax, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video unwilling to make subscriber numbers per market, like in South Africa, available.

What the Telaria and Adobe study found is that while a lot of people switch to streaming services, even more would switch and get rid of their existing traditional pay-TV subscription if they knew that they could get live programming - especially sports content - and knew what live TV programming existed.

Among consumers who won't let go of their pay-TV subscription - people called "cable keepers" - 20% said they don't know how, if they dropped their pay-TV, how they would access live TV.

"Despite steady declines in subscribers, cable still dominates viewership," the study found.

"The primary reason people keep the cord is the perception that only a linear connection can deliver live television content (42%). The second and third most common reasons are the desire to have a lot of TV channels (34%), and the fear of losing favourite networks (32%)."

Sports content and other live TV events are also strong reasons why people want and want to keep their pay-TV subscription.

According to the study 30% of "cable keepers" said they would drop their pay-TV subscription of they could stream their favourite sports content, live events they want to watch and TV news.

Pay-TV subscribers also don't know enough about streaming services, and don't know what is available, and where.

More than half (55%) say they are confused by the available streaming options.

"Despite the barriers, almost half of cable subscribers have or are considering cutting the cord," the study found.

"This is especially true among millennials, who outpace older segments in cord-free status. One in three pay-TV subscribers would definitely cut the cord if they could live stream their favourite sports, events and news, and an additional 40% would consider it."

"Sports fans are even more likely to consider cutting the cord if they could live stream programming."

According to the study the top reason why people dropped their pay-TV subscription was that it was deemed to be too expensive (73%), that everything was available through streaming (36%), and that there were too many TV channels available on the pay-TV bouquet (36%).

The study found that a lot of people are accessing streaming services through password sharing. A whopping 16% of respondents said they use someone else's password from a network or a provider to authenticate an app on a device.

Another 21% share their passwords with friends and family. Interestingly people are more satisfied with the price they're paying for streaming services than for traditional pay-TV with 70% saying they're satisfied with the monthly price they're paying for streaming, compared to just 40% for traditional pay-TV subscribers.

Vodacom and Naspers talking about sharing DStv video content; looking at customers paying a fixed amount for video data instead of per megabyte.

Vodacom and Naspers are having discussions about the possibility of letting their South African customers download movies and episodes of TV shows but paying a fixed amount instead of the exorbitant data costs per megabyte which has held back the uptake and growth of video-on-demand (VOD) and other over-the-top (OTT) services.

Bloomberg reports that Vodacom is having talks with media and TV company Naspers to bring DStv video content through its pay-TV platform MultiChoice to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

A deal between the big companies could bring new impetus to South Africa's severely constrained and lagging broadband infrastructure and investment.

The roll-out of new services and video-on-demand growth in South Africa have been slow, hampered by years of government inaction and incompetence, as well as bureaucracy at the country's slow-moving broadcasting regulator.

The consumer uptake of video-on-demand (VOD) and OTT services in South Africa, as well as things like digital video mobile broadcasting or DVB-H, have been severely held back the past decade due to a slow-moving and constricted regulatory environment.

On a practical level, limited broadband availability and roll-out for instance has resulted in extremely high data costs involved for ordinary South African consumers who are scared to make use of it and also don't have the money to pay for it.

With expensive uncapped internet connections in the minority in South Africa, consumers with restrictive capped connections and slow connection speeds who want to use even a little bit of data to make video calls or watch video like a movie or TV shows, quickly run into debilitating price points where making use of these services become too expensive.

Besides paying a rental fee per movie release or making use of VOD services, South African customers are burdened with the additional high cost of the actual data used which is quickly gobbled up when accessing video downloading and streaming services like Times Media's VIDI, MTN's FrontRow or MultiChoice's DStv Catch Up.

Last week for instance, Altron TMT admitted that it's Altech Node which it launched in September 2014 was an flop, with sales for the expensive video-on-demand (VOD) set-top box (STB) and service "below expectations with regard to retail customer take-up".

MultiChoice for instance warns DStv subscribers watching video on tablets and smartphones that it recommends uncapped data accounts because "downloading video consumes large amounts of data so please be aware of your data package limits and costs".

It comes as the global VOD streaming service Netflix plans to enter South Africa soon as a new competitor and market disruptor. Netflix told TV with Thinus in January that it plans to be operational and definitely available to South African customers before the end of next year.

According to Bloomberg, Vodacom and Naspers are now considering allowing customers to download a movie or show to a smartphone or tablet for a fixed fee instead of "billing per megabyte".

A deal would mean that customers would be able to download DStv on Demand movies and shows through Vodacom for a cheaper fixed price, without the insanely high cost that comes with the data use of a 500MB or more movie download or streaming, in addition to the rental fee.

Shameel Joosub, Vodacom's chief executive officer (CEO) told Bloomberg that Vodacom - which recently shocked and angered consumers with a unilateral tariff hike from May - plans to sell its own video content to customers. "That's where we'll evolve," said Shameel Joosub.

A deal between Vodacom and Naspers would be the first new big partnership between the two since Vodacom started selling the two DStv Select bouquet offerings from MultiChoice in June 2007, a packaged product agreement which was terminated in late 2011, with legacy DStv Select subscribers being phased out.