The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu
AS the battle for the hearts and minds of television viewers across the continent continues, TelOne has also thrown its hat into the ring, thus emerging as the latest challenger to broadcast giant Multichoice with its Digital Entertainment on Demand (DEOD) service.
The product of a partnership between TelOne and South African digital media company Discover Digital, DEOD was launched on Thursday by Ster Kinekor during a snazzy ceremony attended by some of the city’s celebrities and business leaders.
The streaming service joins Netflix and Kwese iFlix as the latest challengers to DSTV, as new streaming services begin to get more prominence while the broadcast giants adapts to a changing landscape which has seen viewers migrate from subscription to streaming and video on demand services.
As fibre makes its way into many homes in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent, streaming services have been gaining ground. In South Africa, DSTV lost as many as 100 000 subscribers last year alone. Telone’s DEOD Premium offers a combination of News, Sport and On Demand for a take-all special price of $11.99 for 30 days. For viewers not interested in monthly payments, they can also pay a weekly ($4.50) or weekend ($2.50) fee.
DEOD has integrated payment channels that will allow customers to subscribe and buy/rent movies using mobile money and other digital payments platforms as well as purchase vouchers in-store at any TelOne outlet.
The Head Marketing and Business Development at TelOne, Maureen Mutsonziwa Chirambaguhwa, said that the unveiling of the service came at an opportune time for TelOne.
“The DEOD launch comes at a strategic time for TelOne after the recent completion of the 98 million China Exim facility which has supported our TelOne national broadband project and the deployment of fibre to over 33 000 homes and we’re targeting 100 000 homes before 2019,” she added.
Chirambaguhwa said that this latest innovation had the potential of revolutionizing TV viewing in Zimbabwe.
“This new innovation from TelOne will give Zimbabweans access to exciting new TV viewing options. It will unveil internet TV at another level. It will give viewers the ability to rent on a title by title basis or a pay per view basis. The pay per view option allows you the chance to access a movie for as little as $1.50. so for as little as 1.50 you will actually be to access a movie that you’ll be able to access over a 48 hour period. All this is at very competitive pricing,” she said.
Chirambaguhwa said that local content producers would also be in the mix, as the service was set to have a channel dedicated towards local content.
“We as TelOne are very excited about this latest innovation and we’re calling on all local content producers to see our representatives. We are going to have a local content channel on this platform. There’re interesting business opportunities for local content producers and we’re all for promoting local content,” she said.
