With the arrival of TopTV on 1 May 2010 every South African will now be able to afford premium quality Pay TV.
From as little as R99 per month subscribers will now have access to over 2o channels consisting of local and international programming. TopTV will initially offer four different Pay TV packages namely Variety, Kids and Music, Entertainment and Knowledge and Ultimate Movies.
“The majority of South Africans who can afford to pay between R99 and R249 a month, will have access to world class television entertainment across all genres including News & Knowledge, Movies, Family and Sport, Kids, Music and Cultural programming.” says Vino Govender, CEO of On Digital Media (ODM). Govender adds, “Some of the highlights of these channels include the Top History channel which will bring the history of South Africa to the fore as never before, BBC News, Eurosport News, 6 dedicated 24 hour movie channels, as well as services for the Portuguese and French communities in South Africa.”
TopTV has established partnerships with leading studios around the world, including CBS, Fox, Warner, Discovery and Disney.
TopTV subscribers can look forward to channels such as Zee Cinema, Discovery Travel & Living, Fox Entertainment, Fine Living Network, Current TV, BET, MGM, Showtime, Discovery Science, Silver, Baby TV, Setanta Africa, France24, BBC World, Hi Nolly, Kidsco, Jim Jam, Baby TV, Fuel TV, and Fox FX just to name a few.
TopTV’s set-top boxes and dishes will be available at a introductory price of only R499. The introductory price includes a TopTV decoder (STB), Installation, Smart Card, Power Supply, Male / Female RF Cable, RCA Cable, Remote Control Unit, Batteries and instruction manual. Set-top boxes and dishes will be available through Makro, Pep, Dion, Game, selected Jumbo Cash & Carry stores, CCW, Brown’s, Weirs and House & Home stores.
I really don’t think that people understand that choice (competition) in TV packages is necessarily a good thing.
The issues will come when which package gets rights to which shows.For example , sports fans might not be able to watch all European football on one package, with Italian football being on one and Spanish football on another. So to watch all your shows you will have to pay for two or more packages.
Yes Warren thats why its essential for the PayTV operator to structure the packages correct. Even if TopTV is to do something like you said with regards to football it will still be cheaper to get their top end package with all the channels than a DSTV package.
DSTV has had affordable packages for sometime now and today released its R99 package. When you compare the costs it is VERY similar so the choice will come down to the channels you prefer between the 2. The top package from TopTV has TOO many unkown music, religion, and kids channels while DSTV Compact has most of the good channels inlcuding 4 sports channels. They both cost under R250 so I don’t know what sort of dent TopTV is hoping to make but I don’t think they have it right YET!
http://tazman.co.za/2010/04/30/toptv-local-sports/
I agree Tazman, sport plays a big part in the decission as to what profider people will choose. But one thing to note it the installation cost, for lower income people to obtain DSTV decoder and installation is at least R1k where as TopTV decoder, dish and installation is only R499. I think this will play the biggest part for new subscribers to the Pay TV market.
I do not see a choice what so ever in TopTV offerings. I was under a false impression that I will be able to choose 20 channels for which I will be paying a fair amount. What TopTV offers does not much differ from DSTV “choice”. Actually 150 bucks DSTV option is much better than any of the TopTV options. I think lots of people were duped into “real choice” slogan advertising by TopTV. You know… on their web site you were not able to post any comment? You could only see carefully selected opinions of biased few
. TopTV – very well executed, brain washing advertising campaign… and most of the people were not able to connect either 
.
I wonder when last DSTV got 50,000 subs in one day, i guess they would not do much better. Also it would be your problem to sort out the installation. Oh! and it would cost you +- R2000,00 for your ( obsolete mpeg2) decoder ), dish and installation. Wakeup at 499 you are getting more than a grand of stuff for free. When last did DSTV give you something? Now that there’s some competition the throw in a few extra channels on the select options ( well its too late ) and the premium guys – they can afford it, so nothing extra for them. Mr Monopoly is me a person back here, talk to me not some strategic technospeak – how bout a small discount? pleese
is toptv coming to namibia, and when is it coming
Hi Shaun, not that I know of.
I must choose between DSTV and TOP TV . I am currently a DSTV subscriber but cannot afford it any more due to having a teenager (expensive habit ) of 13 that eats up all my moola . But i dont hear a lot of good about TOPTV . Please advice.
when will toptv be available in namibia