According to reports reaching BMA, South Africa’s eMedia’s Openview service has recorded 2.12 million more activations over the past six years compared to the number MultiChoice added to its DStv packages in the same period.
Over the past six years, an analysis of decoder activations revealed that Openview activated almost 2.81 million set-top boxes, while DStv added only 686,000 subscribers in South Africa.
While DStv South Africa saw higher net subscriber additions than Openview in 2019 and 2020, the tide turned in favour in the 2021 financial year. Openview demonstrated significant growth with 368,599 decoder activations compared to DStv’s 289,900 new subscribers. This trend continued with Openview’s annual activations reaching 413,011 in 2022 and over half a million in 2023, while DStv lost 161,000 subscribers. Even though Openview’s new activations declined in the last financial year to 377,916, it still outperformed DStv, which lost 409,000 South African subscribers between March 2023 and March 2024.
Openview may offer fewer TV channels and radio stations than DStv, but its content’s quality and popularity set it apart. Despite DStv’s reputation for higher-quality programming and a wider range, eMedia’s channels and programs consistently attract a larger audience. The statistics from the South Africa Broadcasting Research Council show that E-TV’s original programming, mainly soaps and dramas, consistently ranks among the most-watched programs in the country. The Television Audience Measurement Survey for May 2024 further confirms this, with E-TV’s top 5 programs attracting over 3.2 million viewers and six of its most-watched broadcasts appearing in the top 10 across all TV broadcasters and platforms in South Africa.
Over the past year, ratings for Openview channels such as eExtra, eMovies Extra, and eReality have positioned them among the top 15 satellite channels—Openview plans to introduce “several additional” channels in the upcoming financial year. Additionally, the company aims to introduce a new smart decoder equipped with onboard storage and Wi-Fi connectivity.
