Tonight at a live media event, the South African Broadcasting Commission (SABC) announced that it will, along with Media Investments partner with existing broadcaster Openview to bring its content to South African consumers through its platform. The service already includes a host of content, including radio channels, news and tv. Now it’ll include SABC content, which will include a new channel.
Of course, everyone needs to adapt along with newer digital technologies, and that includes the battling state agency we’ve all come to loathe. This announcement means we’re finally seeing the SABC move in the right direction. Instead of launching its own streaming service, (at this stage) the state broadcaster decided to join forces with an existing platform with an existing client base.
The SABC is making some friends
Even more interestingly, the Openview streaming box that is currently available only costs a once-off fee, with no monthly fee to access and stream content. That fee is R600, after which everything is free, including the newly added channels.
Openview is known for its exclusivity deal with certain sports leagues, including Premier League and NBA.
Now we’ll see SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3 and the newly announced SABC Sport with two additional incoming channels on Openview. All three of its new channels will launch officially in the next three months, all of which will be ‘entertainment-based. We should mention that this is not an exclusive deal and SABC will still be available on its other platforms.
