Mobile
- Notice
ODM targeting Sth Africa’s 'underserved'
Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 22-03-2010
Vino Govender, CEO at On Digital Media, South Africa’s new pay-TV player, says his new bouquet (which launches in early May) is targeting the lower middle class, and in particular the 60% of South Africans who want wholesome family entertainment, and are not that interested in sport.
On Digital Media is trading under the Top TV brand and wants to appear to a mostly Christian audience, and which can afford its Rand99 (for 20 channels) and R249 (for 50). Govender told local publication Moneyweb that incumbent Multichoice had signed up sports rights for some time to come but ODM would be bidding for those rights as and when they became available. “If you look at our target market, we're targeting the under-served market. At the moment, there's roughly 5.5m households that can afford our product who do not have a multi-channel environment at home and we plan to offer them 50-plus channels.”
Govender says ODM’s business model is based roughly on (signing up) 120,000 to 130,000 subscribers per annum. “From an Icasa [regulator] point of view, we're not allowed as a pay-TV operator to earn more 5% of our total income from advertising revenue.”
He also said that he expects Multichoice’s DStv to retaliate: “The important thing to understand is that if you look at the way the packages on the MultiChoice platform are set up - you have a Premium offering you have the Compact offering and I think there's one called Select. The Compact offering is mainly driven by SuperSport 3 and 4 channels and some additional channels. Now we're competing at that level...so one has to be very careful how one competes in the market. But we do expect new bouquets, new channels, etc, (from DStv) and we will react accordingly in the market in time. It's what competition is all about.”
© Rapid TV News 2010
