StarTimes 'funding crisis' in Africa could impact Chinese TV operator's TopTV take-over and what it wants to do in South Africa.

StarTimes, the Chinese company set for a take-over of the struggling On Digital Media's (ODM) satellite pay-TV service TopTV in South Africa is experiencing a "funding crisis" in Africa - something would could, or is possibly already, impacting its operational take-over of TopTV and what it plans to do in South Africa where it will now get a foothold in the lucrative pay-TV sector.

StarTimes operates in more than 10 African countries ranging from Nigeria, Burundi, Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and now also South Africa where the StarTimes logo appeared for the first time on South African TV screens last week when StarTimes and TopTV launched several StarTimes test TV channels as it eradicates the "Top" branded channels on ODM's satellite pay-TV platform.

StarTimes president Pang Xinxing however told China Daily and Chinese Entrepreneur that StarTimes is experiencing a "paucity of funds" which is the reason for the company not yet being operational in some other countries, and for not having started to build TV platforms although it has been granted licenses to start services.

Pang Xinxing said the "funding gap is still too large" despite StarTimes making use of loans and direct investments. He said this poses a threat to StarTimes' dream of providing coverage for 70% of Africa's population over the next three years.

Last month StarTimes took over the satellite operator SES' 20% shareholding in TopTV, and also signed a 10-year contract for using the SES-5 satellite to expand its footprint and to offer direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast services across the African continent.

With this new contract StarTimes will use four transponders from this month and a fifth transponder from February 2014, with the Chinese operator which will continue to run the TopTV service on SES-5 by using three of the newly contracted SES transponders that were previously leased by On Digital Media.

"The recent success of StarTimes's strategic investment in ODM willallow us to reach new audiences in South Africa," says Pang Xinxing, promising "excellent service and picture quality for our viewers".

SES launches new SES-5 satellite into orbit; new capacity for sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Middle East.

The satellite operator SES has launched the new SES-5 satellite into space aboard an ILS Proton Breeze M booster which will be providing fresh new satellite capacity in multiple frequency bands to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The satellite was built for SES by Space Systems/Loral and will be serving customers in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in the Nordic and Baltic countries and hemispheric coverage over Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

"It has been a privilege to work with SES on this complex, multi-mission satellite," says John Celli, the president of Space Systems/Loral in a statement. "SES-5 demonstrates the robust capability of the 1300 platform to provide state-of-the-art communications and at the same time host an important payload for the European Commission."

Global satellite operator, SES, opens an office in Johannesburg; plans a 3rd office in East Africa soon.

Trade publication Screen Africa broke the news that the global satellite operator SES has opened an office in Johannesburg. Who knew?

SES already has an office in Ghana and plans to open another office soon in East Africa.

Ibrahima Guima-Saido is heading up the satellite operator's office in Johannesburg. Currently SES transmit 526 channels to Africa from various satellites.

How many TV households in Africa and in your African country? Most African TV markets can't answer this crucial question.

How many TV households in Africa? How many homes with television in your country?

Most African countries are unable to answer this question and are not able to give a definitive, clear and accurate answer. Since TV households are the currency to determine viewership which again helps to set advertising rates, that is one of the biggest reasons why Africa's TV market is lagging behind the rest of the world.

''It's very difficult - and I'm sure I'm not the only one here - to find out how many TV households we have in Africa. The majority of African TV markets can't answer this question,'' says Christoph Limmer, the senior director for market development Africa at satellite provider SES. He was speaking at the AfricaCast 2011 TV summit in Cape Town as part of the 14th AfricaCom conference. SES provides satellite services for multiple pay TV operators across Africa, such as TopTV in South Africa.

''We conduct a lot of research to try and find figures for TV households that are accurate and trustworthy. We have devised methodologies, successfully used in Europe, and now applied to Africa, to find out how many TV homes there is in a country.''

''This is very important because in a country like Nigeria for instance, you will get a figure ranging from 7 million to 16 million. What is the right number? For advertiser-based broadcasting, advertisers and broadcasters want to know exactly how many people they're dealing with; how many TV households?''

Christoph Limmer said that Africa now has about 81,6 million TV households in total.