South Africans now have a choice

With the arrival of TopTV at the beginning of this month, pay TV will no longer be the domain of the fortunate few. TopTV is offering its subscribers access to over 20 channels for as little as R99 per month. SEAN BACHER looks at what is involved and what TopTV customers can expect.
According to a TopTV spokesperson, the above mentioned price is for the entry level bouquet and excludes installation. “Customers will have to pay R499 as a start-up fee,” she says. This includes the dish, decoder and installation. From there on, customers can choose which subscription option best suites their needs.

According to the spokesperson, TopTV sold all 50 000 units within the first six hours that they were made available. “From the initial uptake, it is clear as day that South Africans are looking for a cheaper alternative to the pay TV option that is available in South Africa,” she says.

TopTV did confirm that the initial 360 installers were battling to keep up with the demand. “We are however training additional installation teams and should have another 100 ready to help with the load by the end of the week,” she says.

Furthermore, many customers were complaining that installation teams were asking for an additional installation charge. TopTV says that there is no additional charge and that if the team is charging an additional fee, it is not an accredited TopTV installation crew.

Furthermore, DSTV customers will not be able to use their existing DSTV dishes to pick up the Top TV bouquets as the two companies are receiving their broadcasts from two different satellites.

When signing up for TopTV, customers will receive a TopTV set top box or decoder and a satellite dish. These are available through Pep, Game , Makro, Dion, selected Jumbo Cash & Carry stores, CCW, Brown’s and Weirs as well as House & Home. More stockists will be added in the future.

So what’s on offer from Top TV:

TopTV will offer four different pay TV packages, namely Variety, Kids and Music, Entertainment and Knowledge and Ultimate Movies. Within the four packages there are seven different pricing options, ranging from R99 to R249 per month. The pricing structure is as follows:

Variety – R99
Variety and Kids & Music –  R159
Variety and Entertainment & Knowledge – R159
Variety, Kids & Music and Entertainment & Knowledge – R189
Variety, Kids & Music and Ultimate Movies – R219
Variety, Entertainment & Knowledge and Ultimate – R219
Variety, Kids & Music, Entertainment & Knowledge and Ultimate Movies – R249

Vino Govender, CEO of ODM says: “The majority of South Africans who can afford to pay between R99 and R249 a month, will have access to world class television entertainment across all genres including News & Knowledge, Movies, Family and Sport, Kids, Music and Cultural programming.” He continues: “Some of the highlights of these channels include the Top History channel which will bring the history of South Africa to the fore as never before, BBC News, Eurosport News, 6 dedicated 24 hour movie channels, as well as services for the Portuguese and French communities in South Africa.”

Through well established partnerships, TopTV has secured programming and channels from household names around the world, including Fox, Warner, Disney, CBS and Discovery. Subscribers can look forward to channels like Zee Cinema (Bollywood channel), Discovery Travel & Living, Fox Entertainment, Fine Living Network, Current TV, BET, MGM, Discovery Travel & Living, Fox Entertainment, Showtime, Discovery Science, Silver, Baby TV, Setanta Africa, France24, BBC World, Hi Nolly, Kidsco, Jim Jam, Baby TV, Fuel TV, and Fox FX, to name a few.

For further information call the TopTV customer care line between 7am and 11pm every day on 08600 TOPTV/08600 86788 or visit www.toptv.co.za.