Hannalie Bekker, who headed content for the now in limbo, pay-TV operator Telkom Media, resigned her position at the end of June.
It was announced on 25 March that Telkom was winding down its media subsidiary, Telkom Media after failing to find a buyer for the business. Then early in May it was announced that a deal was imminent between the Chinese company Shenzhen Media South Africa and the pay-TV operator which never managed to get on air. But after objections were raised to the deal, the future sale of Telkom Media is now in the hands of Icasa (Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) which granted Telkom Media its pay-TV licence in September 2007.
Bekker says she will take a few weeks break in Europe and on her return launch her new business venture to be called Octant, which takes its name after an 18th century navigational device.
“The name comes from my notion that all strategy and business development is really an act of navigation – using what we know to chart a course into the unknown – and never more so than when an explosion of technology and the implosion of the economy have rendered our world ‘new’ in so many ways,” says Bekker.
“My company will work in strategy, market insight and business development, all in the broad content space, acting as consultants, strategic partners and/or service providers,” says Bekker.
“Three very skilled and valued colleagues will be working with me on an associate basis. They expand Octant’s skills set with, respectively, deep insight into local advertising and sponsorship dynamics and airtime sales; a broad and strategic knowledge of pretty much the whole media landscape; and market research and insight.”
