By Catherine Sasman
JOHANNESBURG
MultiChoice Africa has announced plans to add five new channels to its DStv bouquet.
The channels are offered at no extra costs to DStv subscribers, and include a newly created movie channel, M-NET Stars; a glossy general entertainment channel, Sony Entertainment TV; an animated channel, ANIMAX; One Gospel channel, and a lifestyle and fashion channel, The Style Network.
All five channels will be available to DStv Premium subscribers in southern Africa, and the gospel and lifestyle channels will be on offer to DStv Compact subscribers. The gospel channel will also be available in the DStv family package.
“The five new channels expand our already unrivalled choice of family entertainment. The new channels, launching in November, continue our tradition of providing top quality programming across a range of genres,” said MultiChoice Africa CEO, Eben Greyling.
The announcement of the channels comes in the wake of an extensive channel re-shuffle across the MultiChoice products, and is specifically aimed at creating additional channel space. With all channels on DStv moving from 2-digit to 3-digit channel numbers, the five new channels can now be accommodated on DStv, with the additional benefit of channels fitting into their relevant genres, MultiChoice Africa announced.
“With the expansion of the DStv offering over the past few years, the upcoming channel re-shuffling was a natural step in the evolution of our business,” Greyling said.
“It is our intention to introduce new channels and the channel re-shuffle gives us the ability to do this successfully. We now look forward to bringing audiences more of the best international and local programming that they have come to expect and enjoy with us. And there is more to come, so stay tuned,” promised Greyling.
The first new channel to be aired was the movie channel at the beginning of this month that screens “feel-good” contemporary classics.
Sony Entertainment followed and promises family-friendly entertainment, with dramas, comedies, thrillers and award-winning international series.
ANIMAX provides a wide variety of genres from action and horror, science fiction, comedy and fantasy.
The 24-hour daily One Gospel channel is debuting on DStv, and showcases gospel music from all over the African continent and the world. It includes studio-generated and live performances from international and up-and-coming artists, spiritually themed talk shows, magazine programmes and game shows.