{"id":76864,"date":"2013-04-30T17:08:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T15:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=76864"},"modified":"2013-05-02T11:23:29","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T09:23:29","slug":"startimes-to-take-over-toptv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/76864-startimes-to-take-over-toptv.html","title":{"rendered":"StarTimes to take over TopTV"},"content":{"rendered":"

A meeting to vote on a business rescue plan for TopTV<\/a>, which included an offer by China’s StarTimes<\/a> \u2013 already operating in 16 African countries \u2013 was delayed after representatives of shareholders, particularly in Canada, asked for time to consult with senior advisors.<\/p>\n

It emerged this week that a black-owned consortium Dynamic TV, backed by a R500-million soft loan from MultiChoice \u00a0and Kenyan based Wananchi Group, backed by a US company, \u00a0submitted expressions of interest on April 24, after the business rescue plan was published on the website of On Digital Media (OMD<\/a>) \u2013 the company that owns TopTV.<\/p>\n

TopTV was placed into “business rescue” under the Companies Act in October 2012.<\/p>\n

StartTimes started developing its African markets in 2002, and was issued the first digital TV operator licence by Rwanda in 2007.<\/p>\n

Currently the group operates in 10 African countries\u00a0including\u00a0Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Republic of central Africa, Guinea and Kenya.<\/p>\n

ODM creditors and shareholders were told at a meeting in Sandton on Tuesday that Wananchi \u2013 which offers a triple-play product of broadband, pay-TV and voice-over-internet protocol services in markets in East Africa \u2013 has submitted a proposal to invest in and turn around the company.<\/p>\n

The consortium comprises of Dynamic TV businessperson and MSG Afrika’s Given Mkhari and Malose Kekana of Falk Trading. MSG already owns other media assets, including radio station Capricorn FM and shares in companies like the Jupiter Drawing Room.<\/p>\n

It has been made clear that a buyout of the company is the only way to save TopTV. If it is allowed to go into liquidation, the only shareholder to be paid out would be the Development Bank of South Africa, who lent R200-million to the pay-TV company. The other shareholders, including Industrial Development Corporation<\/a>, would receive no money.<\/p>\n

Source: Mail & Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

More about TopTV<\/h3>\n

TopTV to proceed with StarTimes bid<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MultiChoice planning to help TopTV<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Porn TV channels for SA coming<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

TopTV prices to be halved: StarTimes<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A business rescue plan with StarTimes to take over TopTV has been adopted by the majority of shareholders at a meeting in Johannesburg on Tuesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340909,"featured_media":75879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[36,19250,19097,87],"class_list":["post-76864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-active","tag-dynamic-tv","tag-startimes","tag-toptv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340909"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76940,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76864\/revisions\/76940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}