StarSat introducing new StarSat Sport Plus add-on package for R99 per month; will contain StarTimes World Football and StarTimes Sport Premium channels.

On Digital Media (ODM) and StarTimes Media SA is introducing its new StarSat Sport Plus add-on package on Thursday 10 September for R99 with two sports channels.

The sports channels are part of new sports rights StarTimes acquired for Africa.

The StarSat Sport Plus package will cost an additional R99 per month and existing subscribers will then get 2 channels - StarTimes World Football and StarTimes Sport Premium - as standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) channels depending on their version of decoder.

The older StarSat decoder (TopTV branded black decoder) will only have StarTimes Football SD on channel 244 and StarTimes Sport Premium SD on channel 242; the newer white and HD capable StarSat decoder will have these two channels as well as a HD version of StarTimes World Football on channel 245 and StarTimes Sport Premium HD on channel 246.

To subscribe to the StarSat Sport add-on package, someone needs to already be a subscriber of the StarSat Super, StarSat Indian (in which case you also have to take StarSat Special), or the StarSat Chinese packages.

The StarTimes Sport Premium and StarTimes World Football channels will exclusively show the Bundesliga and Series A soccer.

StarSat adds 3 channels from Saturday: sports channel StarTimes Sports Premium and two Nollywood channels, AMC Series and Iroko Play.

StarSat is adding the three TV channels StarTimes Sports Premium, AMC Series and Iroko Play from tomorrow.

The South African satellite pay-TV service run by On Digital Media (ODM) and China's StarTimes Media SA got approval from the broadcasting regulator, Icasa, to add the channels.

The addition of StarTimes Sports Premium, a self-packaged sports channel, is the first real inroads to bring its subscribers relevant sports content which includes live sport coverage, one of the biggest drawbacks which hampered StarSat subscriber growth since the service launched under the much maligned and since retired "TopTV" brand in May 2010.

StarTimes Sports Premium (StarSat 242) which became available on StarTimes' platform elsewhere in Africa in May and awaited approval from Icasa, already started to siphon sports coverage away from competitor MultiChoice and SuperSport, netting exclusive broadcasting rights to sporting events and sport series across several types of sport which will be rolled out over the next two years.

StarTimes Sports Premium will show subscribers live sport events ranging from Bundesliga football, athletics, motorsport and boxing to volleyball and table tennis, including a range of sports magazine shows.

AMC Series (StarSat 134) - not to be confused with the American AMC (DStv 140 / StarSat 115) - is being added as a sister channel to the other AMC channel: Africa Movie Channel (StarSat 185) showing Nollywood movies.

AMC Series will showNollywood and other African content and TV series like Clinic Matters, Dear Mother - Reloaded and The Benjamins.

Iroko Play (StarSat 116) is another Nollywood movie channel showing African movies.

"These channels  bring a high level of entertainment  and are further evidence of our ongoing commitment to bring good, quality and varied programmes to our subscribers," says Ian Woodrow, StarSat general content manager.