The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has announced the new pay-tv providers today.

Whilst economists seem to think that the South African domestic market will only be able to support two additional players to the current monopolist MultiChoice, Icasa announced 4 new licensees from the 18 bidders. MultiChoice’s tender for a license was also successful, bringing the total local players to 5.

The two most interesting new providers seems to be TelkomMedia and On Digital Media (ODM). TelkomMedia will provide its service via broadband and satellite and its service will be clocking in under R100 for its 15-channel offering. ODM will charge between R150 and R370 for its 40 to 50 channel offering but will allow consumers to choose exactly which channels they want to have access to.

Whilst it will probably be difficult to compete against MultiChoice, which has a 10-year advantage over the new players, there does seem to be quite a large untapped market out there which cannot afford MultiChoice’s R470p/m offering and any competition in the area will be welcomed.

Some new providers seems to be able to start broadcasting by December 2007, but most probably SA will only get a taste of the new TV offerings by mid-2008.

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