StarSat celebrates a decade of cultural diversity

Since the rebranding of TopTV on 30 October 2012 and the subsequent conclusion of the business rescue process, the rebranded StarSat has emerged stronger than ever before. Current subscriber figures indicate that they have more than quintupled the number of StarSat subscribers compared to their lowest point (post business rescue). StarSat is now on track to return to profitability over the medium term, despite the challenging economic environment, a highly concentrated (yet still unfairly regulated) SA subscription television sector and the rising level of online engagement.

Keeping pace with emerging new value exchanges and commercial models

A major global shift in the media sector is the disruption of old commercial models. The first and big pivot is the move to Direct 2 Consumer (D2C). In this regard, StarSat launched a cutting edge mobile streaming app called ST ON in October 2014. This app provides a data-saving live TV and VOD service in HD and is available in nine African languages. They have recorded over 27 million downloads and have 2 million active users every month.

The ST ON app comprises three main services:

• OTT TV Everywhere – StarTimes ON selects more than 150 of the best live channels covering sports, movies, TV series, news, kids programmes, music and documentaries.

• OTT SVOD: Thousands of thematically based TV series, blockbusters, latest news, selected kids and educational content.

• ST ON online payment system, where any subscriber can pay their weekly, monthly subscription.

StarSat Pay TV: enriching lives through diverse programming 

First and foremost, StarSat is proud of their contribution to South Africa's national effort to raise awareness around the Covid-19 pandemic. Their public service announcements continue to cover many other socially relevant topics.

Pursuant to the rising African diaspora's southward migration. According to the Migration Data Portal there are 2.9 million African migrants residing in Southern Africa, with approximately 1.6 million in South Africa. StarSat's content is geared to cater for all major African cultural groups. Their platform provides the richest offering of African content in several indigenous languages.

StarSat’s Indigenous Language Dubbing Project brings the best international shows in local languages. Their Midrand based dubbing centre launched two years ago, adapts long running episodic programming to Zulu and English. One of StarSat’s flagship projects is the Zulu version of the multi-award-winning novella called Brothers. They are in the process of building additional capacity to dub to several other SA indigenous languages.

Community TV: StarSat is fast becoming the natural destination for small independent community TV initiatives. RSTV (Mpumalanga) and 1Free State, amongst others, are newcomers who benefit from StarSat's content marketing support service.

Religious diversity – apart from StarSat's traditional Christian focus, they also cater for the Muslim and Catholic religious community. StarSat hopes to expand to accommodate other marginalised SA based spiritual groupings.

Cultural diversity – an abundance of Turkish, Filipino, Indian, Nigerian and Chinese cultural life is embraced by the popular Dizi channel (Turkish novella), three Novella channels, nine Bollywood channels, four Nollywood channels as well as several exceptional Chinese factual and fictional channels.

The satelite dishes beaming to 17 other countries from Midrand.

Steady building of home-grown entertainment 

StarSat has four locally produced channels. ST Kasi Music (SA music) and ST RnB (soul music) are very popular. ST Gospel broadcasts SA religious programming and ST Rise offers general entertainment that will soon be entirely dedicated to local indigenous content.

Content commissioning – StarSat commissioned and acquired numerous local shows over the years, such as Puppet Nation, Proud, etc. When others weren’t “quite ready for it yet”, StarSat brought the satirical news show Puppet Nation to the small screen. It won over 20 awards, including two SAFTAS for best TV comedy. Proud is a landmark series where seven members of the LGBTQIA+ community tell their stories and share their struggles. They aim to keep expanding on their local commissioning activity.

A feast of international channels

Many new channels have been launched on the StarSat platform recently, examples include world-class CBS Justice, CBS Reality, TRACE Africa, FilmBox and the ever-popular Kartoon Channel. They are immensely proud to be exclusive host for BRICS TV (Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa).

Sports – StarSat works hard to develop audience appreciation for new highly competitive sport brands. They are proud to announce partnerships for Africa cricket (T20), soccer (Saudi Pro League, Copa Italia, Brasileirao Serie A, etc.), and fighting sports (ONE Championship, WBO), all of which are broadcast live on StarSat's five live sports channels. ESPN, ESPN 2 (known for NBA basketball), MUTV (Manchester United), Real Madrid TV are all available on their lower priced bouquets.

News coverage - StarSat has assembled 12 international news channels straddling such diverse brands as Sky News, BBC, Al Jazeera, CGTN, Bloomberg, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. SABC1, 2 and 3 offers local news in all of South Africa's national languages.

Documentaries – NatGeo Wild, NatGeo and CGTN Doc are complimented by learning channels Mindset Learning and Davinci.

Kids and teens – StarSat offers various popular kiddies channels, such as Jim Jam, ST Kids, Toonami, Baby TV and Kartoon Channel.

Intimate customer engagement 

StarSat’s sales network consist of over 1 000 representatives, agents, and installers. They help people install StarSat in their homes and assist with queries and problems. This high level of localised customer intimacy allows StarSat to obtain real-time feedback from loyal customers.

Customer intimacy is also reflected in StarSat’s call centre. Over 20 highly trained agents help customers with daily queries in any official language. Outbound and inbound call centre teams conduct frequent surveys on content appreciation trends.

From mass marketing to niche content promotion 

In a crowded media landscape content marketing is key to appointment viewing. Over the past decade, StarSat has developed a content marketing model responsive to community needs. They partner with community radio, community TV and community print media, supported by online platforms. StarSat values social media engagement with a Facebook following of over 750 000 followers. They hope to expand and perfect this omni-channel model in coming years.

StarSat skill development programme 

StarSat’s phenomenal growth requires the tandem skill upgrade of its staff compliment of more than 170 full time personnel. In the past two years, 17 voice actors and 10 sound engineers were recruited. Their sales force and call centre staff receive regular training in all areas of the digital value chain. They even offer selective internships for promising staff from community-based media partners.

With respect to digital regulation 

StarSat believes that South African policy makers must move with greater speed to ensure effective regulation of the subscription television and streaming sector. Unfair competition must give way to a levelling of the playing field to allow for more meaningful participation of StarSat and other previously disadvantaged media groups.

John Yan is the CEO of StarSat.

A tough road so far – but the future is bright 

“Despite high barriers of entry imposed on us by our competitor through persistent copyright restriction of popular TV content, StarSat has consistently met its business and development goals over the past ten years. As we venture into the next decade, our determination to enrich lives by offering relevant content at an affordable price will be unrelenting”, says John Yan, CEO of StarSat.

For more information on StarSat's bouquets and channels, search their Facebook.

This post and content is sponsored, written and produced by StarSat.