Telkom announced yesterday that it sold its 75% interest in Telkom Media to Shenzhen Media South Africa, averting the ‘winding up’ of Telkom Media. This gave consumers hope that Telkom Media may still become a strong competitor to MultiChoice which it promised to become when it opened its doors in late 2007. <\/p>\n
Telkom Media was planning to provide commercial pay-TV services via satellite, IPTV and the web. “We will offer a bouquet of channels that will address a broadband range of interests across sports, movies, news, general entertainment, knowledge and education,” the Telkom Media website states. <\/p>\n
These plans are now in limbo as Telkom Media’s new shareholders, Shenzhen Media South Africa, take over at the helm. They may decide to change the company’s direction. According to spokesperson Chris van Zyl Telkom Media management must still meet their new shareholders and discuss issues such as services and launch dates. <\/p>\n
MultiChoice is still enjoying a monopoly in the South African pay-TV market despite the awarding of pay-TV licenses by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) in August 2008. MultiChoice was expected to face competition from Telkom Media, On Digital Media (ODM) and e.tv sister company e.sat towards the end of 2008, but none of these plans materialized as expected. <\/p>\n
ODM however recently said that the company plans to launch its first offerings in the second quarter of 2009 which will include tailor-made packages where users can select the channels which they would like to view. Pricing is set to range between R149 and R349 a month ‘depending on the level of choice chosen by the subscriber’.<\/p>\n