Digital Satellite Television, commonly abbreviated to DStv, is a

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

direct broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

service owned by

MultiChoice MultiChoice is a South African company that operates DStv, a major satellite television service in Sub-Saharan Africa and GOtv, a minor service operating in over 9 countries of this area and Showmax service. MultiChoice was formed out of the sub ...

and based in

Randburg Randburg is an area located in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly a separate municipality, its administration devolved to the newly created City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, along with neighbouring Sandton and Roodepoort, ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Launched on 6 October 1995, the service provides multiple

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound * Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of sou ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

and

television channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...

s and services to subscribers, mostly in

and

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. DStv formerly had operations in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

under United Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), which is now

TrueVisions TrueVisions is a cable and satellite television operator in Thailand. TrueVisions is owned by the True Corporation. Until February 2007, it was called the United Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), or UBC-True. History International Broadcasting ...

History

In 1986, pay-television came to South Africa when a single-channel analogue service,

M-Net M-Net (an abbreviation of Electronic Media Network) is a South African pay television channel established by Naspers in 1986. The channel broadcasts both local and international programming, including general entertainment, children's series, ...

, was launched by

Naspers Naspers Limited is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town, with interests in online retail, publishing and venture capital investment. Naspers' principal shareholder is its ...

and local businesses/companies. For almost seven years, all of M-Net's operations were handled by a single dedicated company until 1995 when a second subsidiary company,

, was launched. This company would take over the operations of M-Net including decoder sales, subscriber services (which were also available in local shops) and account management. MultiChoice would also embark on establishing presence in multiple countries outside South Africa which was effective to this day. Not long after, a digital satellite service in

was announced by

and was launched that same year on 6 October 1995 as DStv, an abbreviation for Digital Satellite Television. On its launch, the debut television channels included

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

, Sci-Fi Universal, SuperSport,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and ...

CNN International CNN International (CNNI, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel that is owned by CNN Global. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and inte ...

and Sky News. Over the 2 decades since then till today, television channels launch on the platform when channel carriage contracts are signed and/or renewed between MultiChoice and another

media conglomerate A media conglomerate, media group, or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as music, television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, theme parks, or the Internet. According to th ...

/ broadcaster and ceases transmission when channel carriage contracts are not renewed. This was followed by the launch of new services including: W4 Eutelsat satellite with Ku-band services to

and the

Indian Ocean Islands The islands of the Indian Ocean are part of either the eastern, western, or southern areas. Some prominently large islands include Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java. Eastern Indian Ocean * Andaman Islands (I ...

in 2000,

Interactive Television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new informatio ...

in 2002, the Dual-view decoder in 2003, and the DStv PVR decoder and the DStv Compact subscription package bundle in 2005. The year 2008 saw the introduction of the HD PVR decoder, the XtraView decoder and the high definition feed of the M-Net channel. In 2010,

DVB over IP IP over DVB implies that Internet Protocol datagrams are distributed using some digital television system, for example DVB-H, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C or their successors like DVB-S2. This may take the form of IP over MPEG, where the datagrams are tran ...

(Digital Video Broadcast over Internet Protocol) and DStv Catchup services were launched, as well as the HD PVR 2P decoder same year and M-Net Movies 1 got simulcast in high definition for the first time. DStv BoxOffice (a film/movie rental/on-demand service) and ''DStv Mobile'' were launched in 2011. Since 2012, DStv has also been re-broadcast on

Saint Helena Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constitu ...

, but with only 30 selected channels. As of 2022, Canal+ retains a 20.1% stake on DStv.

Channels and bouquets

DStv airs more than 200 television channels and radio stations. The list of channels differ and vary across the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. There are five or six bouquets/packages, each with a different price range, and four add-on packages for premium film and series channels, Indian, Portuguese, French channels. Most current-day DStv decoders also offer access to MultiChoice's streaming platform,

Showmax Showmax is an online subscription video on demand (SVOD) service which launched in South Africa on 19 August 2015. Showmax uses a localisation strategy to take on established video on demand competitors with a focus on local content and partner ...

, along with other third-party apps through broadband connection and/or

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

connection.

Reception equipment

DStv has their

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

es manufactured by domestic company, Altech UEC, along with

Arris International Arris International Limited (styled as ARRIS) is an American telecommunications equipment company engaged in data, video and telephony systems for homes and businesses. On April 4, 2019, Arris was acquired by network infrastructure provider CommS ...

(for South Africa only) and Chinese electronics company,

Skyworth Skyworth (), officially Skyworth Group Co., Ltd., is a Chinese holding company. Its subsidiaries design, manufacture and sell televisions and other audio-visual products. They also invest in properties. Headquartered in Nanshan High-tech Park, ...

, for the rest of the continent. The choice of boxes include a standard box with "XtraView" capabilities, an older

personal video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...

, and the then-newest PVR box known as the Explora. An additional decoder known as the currently-discontinued Drifta allows the conversion of a DStv DVB-H signal to another digital device such as a laptop, tablet or smartphone for portable in-home viewing.

DStv App

DStv also offers a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

for

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

and tablet devices, along with PC to control DVRs and

parental controls Parental controls are features which may be included in digital television services, computers and video games, mobile devices and software that allow parents to restrict the access of content to their children. These controls were created to ...

and allow access to recorded content and

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

services. The app was previously known as ''DStv Mobile'' until 2016 and ''DStv Now'' until 2020.

Controversies

Price fixing

In May 2017, DStv admitted to price fixing and contravening the Competition Act and agreed to pay R22 million in penalty fees as well as R8 million to the Economic Development Fund of South Africa.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:DStv Television in Nigeria Television in South Africa Television in Ghana Direct broadcast satellite services Television channels and stations established in 1995 Mass media companies established in 1995