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Johannesburg - Black Earth Communications on Thursday announced in a statement that it had formally applied for a commercial broadcasting licence with the Botswana National Broadcasting Board and was awaiting the outcome of its application for a new subscription Pay TV service to Africa that will operate out of Gaborone Botswana.
Andrew Jones, spokesperson for the venture, said the new service, which will be called Black Entertainment Satellite Television or BEStv, would offer viewers initially between 5 and 10 channels and cost less than R100 a month.
Once in place, the company plans to scale very quickly to a service that will offer viewers a sampling of between 100 and 300 new channels not available on DStv with no significant rate increase.
Jones said: "How we will do it and what exactly we will offer remains of course a trade secret. However, we are 100% confident that what we want to do can be done."
Jones added that BEStv would enter the market initially targeting both black and white viewers in Africa, whom he said have suffered from a lack of choice under Multichoice.
"Nowhere on earth, except here in Africa, do you see one company which has so completely dominated the Pay TV satellite market.
"The result has been a service that looks slick enough but in fact offers little in the way of what's really out there. It is also very expensive, far more so than similar services offered in either the USA or Europe. Look at the US where there is competition.
"In some markets consumers get 500 channels and pay half of what they do here."
Jones noted that the current venture, ironically enough, was born out of a failed effort to gain a channel on the DStv bouquet.
"We tried for several years to gain an independent foothold on the platform and even though we had the backing of some major players, we were turned away.
The reason given was that Multichoice wasn't sure how to approach the black market except with soccer, some music videos and what the SABC has to offer."
According to Jones, Black Earth Communications is not the only group looking at the Pay TV market in Africa.
This year ICASA was expected to issue new licences for the specific purpose of bringing competition to Multichoice, the statement said.