Malawians like new TV bouquet

GTV announced in Malawi this week of the introduction of three new packages, making the company a substantial competitor to Multichoice Malawi.

“Although we have been craving satellite television services that would air African programs, the subscription fees have been very restrictive,” said Vincent Gondwe, of Malawi's northern Rumphi in an interview with Biz Community Internet. He is interested in the new service, as are many other Malawians, but, he says, “GVT has to also come down a little bit, because a GTV dish and decoder costs a fortune”.

Malawi's GTV agent Andy Vorster the G Home package puts high-quality TV entertainment within reach of millions more households in Africa”.

Julian McIntyre, President of Gateway Communications and founder of GTV comments on GTV Website that the African market has been artificially constrained by monopoly pricing and non-relevant content.

“We have a proven track record of developing and launching innovative communications services across Africa and will leverage our experience, expertise, infrastructure and resources to ensure that the growth in television mirrors the phenomenal growth experienced in communications.”

GTV new package include G Plus, G Choice and G Home.

G Plus is GTV's premier package with 21 Channels at K5,150 per month. Channels on this package include G Sports 1, Discovery World, BBC World, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and others.

G Choice is a general entertainment for the whole family with 17 channels at K2,580 per month.

G Choice is the one going at K1480 per month.

GTV's new channels include G Africa, G Series KidsCo and a fourth channel to be unveiled later.

“Africa represents the least penetrated pay-TV region in the world with less than 1% of television-owning households in sub-Saharan Africa currently subscribing to pay-TV services, compared to 15% in Eastern Europe, 36% in Western Europe and 93% in North America,” observed GTV.

The company observes, however, that with over 46 million TV sets and growing at well over 10% per annum, Africa represents a large and rapidly growing market for subscription television, which Gateway's own independently commissioned research estimates will grow to over $3bn by 2015.