BREAKING. TopTV abruptly ends another 2 TV channels - Top History and Top Crime - as Top Learn changes to Mindset TV at midnight.

Another three TopTV TV channels are suddenly ending at midnight tonight without any warning, with both Top Crime (TopTV 155) and Top History (TopTV 301) which will both abruptly cease broadcasting on On Digital Media's (ODM).

Meanwhile Top Learn (TopTV 319) will be changing to Mindset TV.

With multiple big StarTimes changes afoot after the Chinese TV conglomerate bailed out the struggling ODM earlier this year which has been in business rescue since December 2012, it's now clear that StarTimes likely plans to rid the struggling Woodmead based South African satellite pay-TV operator of the "Top" name - at least insofar as TopTV's own original set of "Top" branded self-compiled TV channels are concerned.

It looks increasingly likely that even the "TopTV" name might be changed with the fast dwindling number of "Top" channels, several of which were culled over the past year.

ODM confirms what sources have been telling TV with Thinus, which is that both Top Crime and Top History - two of TopTV's remaining self-compiled "Top" channels - will suddenly be no more from midnight on Monday night.

Channel 319 will continue but Top Learn on 319  is changing to Mindset TV.

No specific reason is forthcoming about why Top Crime and Top History are being canned, but sources are saying that ODM will make replacement channels available, although sources say possible replacement channels will not necessarrily be in the "crime" and "history" genres.

With the bulk of the previously yanked channels, TopTV has also said replacement channels will be provided although it has only happened over the past two years with a small number of TV channels. For the most part TopTV subscribers have been left waiting and wanting.

TopTV confirmed to me that Top Crime and Top History is ending on Monday night, saying "this is to do with the many changes that are currently taking place within TopTV while new plans are being put in place".

TopTV subscribers will not miss Top Crime. The much derided channel, criticised for it stale fair the past three years has not added any new programming to the schedule since TopTV launched in May 2010, opting to show the same series over and over again, restarting seasons of shows after a couple of month, every few months.

Is TopTV getting ready to dump Top Crime and to add Fox Crime? Where is the promised replacement channels? TopTV isn't willing to talk about it.

On Digital Media (ODM) running the struggling South African satellite pay-TV service TopTV is possibly getting ready to dump its own Top Crime (TopTV 301) channel and to add Fox Crime - but TopTV isn't willing to talk about it or to give answers to a growing number of extremely irate TopTV subscribers about months' old promises of new replacement channels for axed ones.

Asked if TopTV is planning on axing its Top Crime channel, and asked if Fox Crime is going to be added to the pay-TV operator's channel bouquet, TopTV declined comment.

Top Crime - regarded as possibly the worst of the self-compiled and self branded "Top" channels on TopTV's bouquet when it comes to the unending recycling of stale content over the past three years - could be the next "Top" channel facing the chop.

Top Junior and Top Movies+24 were both suddenly slashed in April - a move the Woodmead based pay-TV operator called "an unavoidable exercise". No replacement channels have so far been added.

Now Fox International Channels Africa (FIC Africa) and On Digital Media (ODM) are in talks about possibly adding Fox Crime to TopTV as well - the same new channel supplied by FIC Africa and starting on 9 July on MultiChoice's DStv platform.

Fox Crime however would be extremely similar to Top Crime. Top Crime has been filled with old library crime and adventure series content which TopTV has been repeating over and over for the past three years in a loop, with hardly any new content added since Top Crime launched in May 2010.

Fox Crime - although similar in channel proposition as Top Crime - will however also have some first-run new content as well as premium content in the form of the new TV series The Bridge. Episodes of The Bridge will be shown in South Africa two days after its shown in America.

The addition of Fox Crime to TopTV - if negotiations work out and the channel is added - would actually be the replacement of Fox Retro which just disappeared from TopTV's channel bouquet without any prior warning.

However ... if Top Crime is to be axed in the process, it might be perceived by some subscribers as if Fox Crime is substituting for Top Crime. The reality would however be that TopTV subscribers are then one channel more short.

In fact, TopTV subscribers are still waiting for replacement channels since the end of 2012. TopTV subscribers are incensed about months' old and now hollow promises from TopTV to find and replace channels such as Showtime, Star and Silver when Turner Broadcasting pulled their channels from TopTV. TopTV is also refusing to talk about or address the issue.

TopTV, although in business rescue, is still a running business, but remains silent about plans.

Will TopTV be ending the Top Crime channel and why? Is Fox Crime being added to TopTV - and if it is added, does it replace Fox Retro or will Top Crime be removed and Fox Crime be that channel's replacement?

A lot of viewers are wondering what happened to the replacement channels TopTV promised replacements for. TopTV subscribers are saying its been months and they still have to pay the same monthly subscription but they've been getting less content than before?

All of these current and pressing questions were asked of TopTV in a media enquiry. The pay-TV operator isn't answering any of these.

TopTV turns one: What a crime! Why, one year in, Top Crime is TopTV's worst TV channel and biggest letdown on the pay TV platform.

TopTV just turned one and the dubious distinction of single worst TV channel and biggest letdown has to go to Top Crime (TopTV 301) as a disappointing television death sentence stacked with terrible programming.

Based on viewer feedback the past year and the responses from TV with Thinus readers, Top Crime is the channel that proves to be the biggest disappointment, biggest letdown, and sadly have the biggest perceived gap between what it purports to be as a TV channel but in reality turns out to be.

''A 24 hour entertainment channel with a focus on crime drama and suspense programmes'' is the TopTV billing given to Top Crime but the actual grubby fingerprints of this letdown channel tells a whole other crime story. Stacked with inmates like Tropical Heat and Relic Hunter next to the decade old 18 Wheels of Justice and Pensacola on a ''repeat, repeat, repeat'' loop like prisoners who keep coming up for parole, Top Crime seems as much a victim of the system as the Cold Squad.

What the littered D-grade made-for-TV movies such as Tsunami, Fangs, Deadly Exposure, Wild Grizzly, Inhabited or Landslide have to do with actual ''crime'' and why it's even bought and scheduled on TopTV's self-compiled Top Crime channel is a mystery viewers would ponder if they bothered to stay tuned-in long enough to this moribund channel - a channel that is in rebroadcast frequency hyperdrive the likes of what no other channel has ever seen. Somewhere, in a dark room, Top Crime's only purpose is possibly as a torture tool to get suspects to talk - unless they want to be subjected to another can't-tune-away 12 hours forced to watch an endless rotation of PSI Factor repeats.

Top Crime is a collosal disappointment, a major waste of time and satellite bandwidth, and an injustice to TopTV subscribers. The ''24 hour entertainment channel with a focus on crime drama and suspense programmes'' takes the top prize as the TopTV channel that after a year showed the least amount of promise, biggest programming deficiency and most consistent viewer dissatisfaction. TopTV would be well advised to give serious thought to take Top Crime off its seeming life-support and end the channel, or otherwise do a real investment and bring Top Crime up to standard. As Top Crime has been sputtering along the first year, its doing untold damage to the TopTV brand.

Editor's note: No executives involved with, or running Top Crime, were made available by TopTV for interviews despite request the past two weeks.