By Mbatjiua Ngavirue
WINDHOEK
English Premier League football fans may soon be smiling again after confirmation that the Namibian Communications Commission officially gazetted GTV’s television broadcasting licence on Monday.
In terms of the notice in the Government Gazette, people can lodge objections against the commission granting GTV a licence during a 14-day waiting period.
Sources close to the company are, however, confident that unless there are serious hiccups the company will start airing its programmes in Namibia by the first week of October.
The formal applicant for the broadcasting licence is Gateway Broadcasting Service Namibia, a subsidiary of UK-based Gateway Telecommunications.
The announcement in early August that MultiChoice would no longer broadcast a complete package of English Premier League matches on its DStv satellite service caused a furore among subscribers.
MultiChoice General Manager, Kobus Bezuidenhout, confirmed their SuperSport channel would only broadcast 20 percent of English Premier League football matches.
There were even threats of an organised boycott on paying DStv subscription fees by irate soccer fans when the news emerged.
To maximise income, the English Premier League structured its television rights for the African continent into three packages consisting of 80, 20 and 10 percent of matches respectively.
Gateway Broadcast Services, a subsidiary of Gateway Telecommunications, launched a new pan-African pay-TV service, GTV, in June, which won the rights to 80 percent of the Premier League matches in Africa.
Confidential sources, with inside knowledge of GTV’s plans, said the main draw- card of the new television station would be English Premier League soccer.
The new channel will, however, also offer the usual pay-TV menu of movies, television series and entertainment in the form of music.
In addition, GTV will broadcast four 24-hour news channels including the BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera and one other unconfirmed news channel.
To take advantage of the new service, subscribers will, however, have to purchase new decoders – almost identical to, but incompatible with the DStv decoders.
Because GTV broadcasts from a different satellite from DStv, present DStv subscribers will reportedly also have to re-align their dishes or purchase an additional dish.
Sources say GTV’s subscription fee will be in the range of, but possibly slightly lower than the fee for DStv’s mini-bouquet.
“It will be in the range of the mini-bouquet, but gives a lot more programming choice.
“They will be pushing to make it available to people who are not able to afford the current pay-TV services,” one source said.
With the enticing teaser of the English Premier League football to attract viewers, GTV has expanded rapidly in Africa, having already launched in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana and Zambia.
Namibia, Mozambique and a host of other African countries will soon follow these countries.
Because the NCC has not officially granted final approval for the company to start operating, it is not yet able to start advertising or promoting its new Namibian channel.
The company apparently hopes to receive its licence in time to start promoting the channel at the Windhoek show.
Sources have further indicated Hilda Basson’s Oxygen Communications has won the contract for GTV’s public relations.