UK pay-TV service guns for Africa

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 05 Aug 2008

British pay-TV service Gateway TV (GTV) is expanding into French-speaking African countries through its bouquet of sports, movies and series.

The pay-TV service recently entered into a partnership with NDS, a pay-TV digital solutions company that is also based in the UK, to roll-out enabling set-top box software and new electronic programme guides (EPG).

GTV marketing manager Ash Myers says the company has embarked on an expansion with a French service into French-speaking markets. The service will launch in the DRC, Cameroon and Gabon in August, with more to follow over the next few weeks.

Africa Analysis Team media analyst David Moore says that GTV has to compete with Canal+ in francophone countries to dominate the market there - a tall order since Canal+ has been entrenched in the French markets for far longer.

"And they are backed by one of the largest media companies in the world (Vivendi). GTV would have to acquire premium French content from somewhere, a significant challenge considering how much of it is produced by companies in the Vivendi stable."

Moore adds that GTV has been successful in the Anglophone markets in Africa, particularly Uganda and Kenya, because it won several rights to broadcast content that SA's Multichoice previously held. These include the rights to broadcast the English Premiership, which GTV won from Multichoice last year. "Multichoice has had to lower its prices in order to compete," Moore says.

Myers explains that the company built a widely recognised brand in the African market in under a year by providing valuable content and investing in the local programming by pioneering live broadcasting of local African football leagues. This has captured an audience for GTV that spans 20 countries across Africa, including Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

"Pay-TV in Africa is viable if you have sufficient coverage. But the market is rather limited in most areas, some countries only have a few thousand pay-TV subscribers in total," says Moore.