DStv Premium vs Extra vs Compact vs Family

MultiChoice recently extended its Catch Up service to its DStv Compact and Extra subscribers with Explora decoders. Previously, it was only available to those on the Premium package.

DStv’s Catch Up lets subscribers watch episodes of series, movies, or sports events on-demand for a specific period.

The content available via Catch Up is dependent on the package a subscriber is on. Compact customers, for example, will see Catch Up content that has been screened on channels available on DStv Compact.

To get an idea of the differences between the three packages with Catch Up, as well as DStv Family which does not have Catch Up, we compared the channels available on each bouquet.

The prices of the four packages are as follows:

• DStv Premium: R699 per month
• DStv Extra: R425 per month
• DStv Compact: R319 per month
• DStv Family: R199 per month

Subscription fees exclude the DStv PVR access fee of R80 per month, which subscribers must pay to use their decoder’s PVR features – including DStv Box Office and Catch Up.

The table below shows the channels which are common on all four packages. Channels marked with an (*) are simulcast in high definition.

Channels only available on Premium

The table below highlights the channels you get on each package above DStv Family.

Not shown are specialist and foreign channels, which are mostly limited to DStv Premium, as well as audio channels.

Some DMX audio channels are only available on DStv Compact and up, while all the radio stations available through DStv are on all packages.