GOtv goes big across Africa

GOtv, MultiChoice's nascent digital terrestrial television (DTT) service, has proven popular with viewers across Africa, bagging thousands of subscribers just two years after it first launched in Zambia.

"The service has managed to attract more than 400000 paying subscribers to date and is growing at a rapid pace," said Nico Meyer, CEO of MultiChoice Africa. "It is still early days and we believe this will pick up as we expand our network in existing countries and launch in new markets."

The service provides options to viewers hungry for more content but who are put off by the cost of satellite dishes and installation.

The service has also been launched in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana . It competes with Chinese-owned StarTimes in three of these countries.

Although market share statistics are not readily available, StarTimes had 1.5million DTT subscribers in 10 African countries at the end of last year, according to a report by analyst firm Digital TV Research.

Member states of the United Nations International Telecommunications Union have committed to a June 2015 deadline to turn off analogue television broadcasting, creating a market for paid DTT.

Ted Hall, an analyst at technology research firm Informa Telecoms & Media, said the total global number of pay-television homes would grow owing to the competitive attraction of DTT.

"[This] is set to rise by 19% from 658million [50% penetration] in 2010 to 785million [56% penetration] in 2015," he said.

Digital TV Research's Simon Murray predicted sub-Saharan Africa would have 33.8million DTT homes by 2018, with eight million of these signed up for pay DTT.

GOtv offers 20 to 40 channels through two bouquets - GOtv and GOtv Plus. It is operating through a process called "dual illumination", whereby DTT signals are transmitted alongside analogue signals.

"The major cities in some countries had fewer frequencies," said Meyer.

Asked how GOtv subscribers stacked up to its DStv subscribers, Meyer said although the GOtv subscriber numbers were growing fast, they represented only 20% of MultiChoice Africa's total DStv subscriber base on the continent outside of South Africa.