Up until Wednesday, 12 September, MultiChoice had the sole advantage of providing subscription TV in South Africa.

Now that is about to change. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) announced that it had awarded pay-TV licences to four new players, namely Telkom Media, a division of the giant telecommunications company Telkom; E-Sat, part of Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) and sister company of e.tv; Walking on Water, a niche Christian broadcaster and On Digital Media whose shareholders include Cosatu’s investment arm, Kopano ke Matla; and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), as well as the African subsidiary of European satellite giants SES.

In a release on the same day as the Icasa announcement, MultiChoice issued a press release headed “MultiChoice welcomes competition” and stated that it had been awarded a commercial satellite broadcast licence.

E-Sat presented a well-researched submission to Icasa but was cross-questioned by ODM on whether there would be double employment of staff by both e.tv and E-Sat which would also allow a cross-subsidy of costs between the two. In reply Marcel Golding, chairperson of E-Sat said the double employment would only effect senior management who would oversee both companies. There would be “no cross-subsidiaries in costs and staff between e.tv and E-Sat", Golding assured Icasa.

E-Sat’s proposal included a 21-channel pay-TV package that would focus on movies, sports and news.

ODM in its presentation pulled out all the stops to impress Icasa with a high-tech presentation on a number of flat screens. ODM aims to have a 40 to 50-channel service with a monthly subscriber price which will range between R149 and R369. It will also offer an only-pay-for-what-you-want system, which will allow subscribers to create their own bundles.

Telkom Media has a strong advantage as its comprehensive fibre network will allow it to deliver content to homes cheaply. It also has a whopping R7-billion allocated to its subscription broadcasting, video-on-demand and television-via-broadband services.

Walking on Water aims to offer a wide range of programmes based on "Christian lifestyle principles" via satelitte. It maintained that 80% of the South African population is Christian.

The four new subscription broadcasters will have to contend with the well established MultiChoice which broadcasts in more than 50 countries and has an existing pay-TV and internet subscriber base of more than one million customers. For the past 10 years it has provided a wide array of movie and sports channels on the DStv platform to South African subscribers. It intends increasing its DStv channel bouquet by up to 30 video and audio channels.