M-Net

Early years

The idea of a pay-TV network in South Africa came to life in the mid-1980s, when Nasionale Pers (Naspers) - headed by executive Koos Bekker — started to promote the idea to the country's other three largest media corporations: Times Media Ltd (now Avusa/BDFM), Argus (now the Independent Group) and Perskor (which is now defunct).^[2] The newspapers and magazines published by Naspers had lost a lot of advertising revenue to the SABC after the arrival of television and for this reason, according to some sources, the National Party government wanted Naspers to run its own television network.^[2] Initially, the plan was for M-Net to be jointly owned by the four media corporations, with the Natal Witness also having a small share in the station. However, as time went on, the project became that of Naspers only.

In October 1986, they started broadcasting for 12 hours a day, to about 500 households who had bought decoders. (Their aim at that stage was to sell 9,000 decoders per month.)^[2]

Although it was subscription-based, the Broadcasting Authority granted them a one-hour time slot each day, in which the channel could broadcast unencrypted, free-to-air content, in order to promote itself and attract potential subscribers. This time slot became known as Open Time, but was only meant to be temporary — M-Net was supposed to close Open Time immediately when it had 150 000 subscribers.

At the end of its first year, they recorded a loss of R37-million.^[2] However, it pushed forward and eventually, the public started taking notice. After two years, the loss was turned into a R20-million profit.^[2] In 1988, the channel launched Carte Blanche, a multi-award-winning actuality program hosted by Derek Watts and Ruda Landman. In only a few years, Carte Blanche became famous for its investigative journalism. In the process, the show also uncovered many of South Africa's most famous scandals of human rights abuse, corruption and consumer affairs.

1989 saw the launch of M-Net SuperSport, which went on to become South Africa's first dedicated sports channel.

Recent history

1990 was the first year that they made a profit^[3] and also the year that saw a few major changes for the channel. It launched K-TV, a daily time slot specialising in kids entertainment, and Open Time was expanded from the initial one hour per day, to two. They applied for a licence to broadcast news and the application was granted in December 1990. (Former State President P.W. Botha once claimed that "M-Net would not broadcast news as long as he was State President."^[4]) but during June 1991, they announced that it was putting its plans for news broadcasts aside and that, instead, more money would be invested in local productions, including South Africa's first local soap opera Egoli, which started in May 1992 and ended in April 2010. However, they began re-broadcasting BBC World Service Television (now BBC World News) that same year.

M-Net SuperSport changed its name in 1994 to SuperSport only, in order to create a more recognizable brand. During that year it broadcast live coverage of South Africa's test cricket series in Australia for the first time. At the same time, Hugh Bladen and Naas Botha - two of the channel's most colourful rugby commentators — joined SuperSport. By that time, its sports coverage became very impressive, including the US Masters, the FA Cup Finals, the Indy 500, the US PGA Championship, Wimbledon, the Tour de France, MotoGP and an ever-expanding rugby package. In 1995, SuperSport started broadcasting 24 hours per day on M-Net's spare channel, the Community Service Network, which paved the way for a 24-hour multi-channel sports network. When rugby became a full professional sport in 1995, most of the broadcasting rights in the Southern Hemisphere were sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. In response, they started negotiating with NewsCorp in August 1995 and in February the following year, SuperSport was granted sole broadcasting rights to both the Super 12 and Tri Nations rugby tournaments.^[5] It was a major breakthrough for the channel as well as SuperSport, which had by now expanded to channels on DStv, Multichoice's satellite TV service.

High definition

Launch of DStv's first High Definition decoder the HD PVR, XtraView and the first HD channel, M-Net HD. M-Net began broadcasting a 720p high definition channel in 2010, which is available on the majority of availability of a HD PVR; the standard definition channel for non HD PVR subscribers, as is merely downscaled at the provider from the HD feed rather than having a devoted analog channel. In 2012 the original two movie channels were replaced with six HD channels which grouped films according to genre.^[6]

M-Net Movies

The original two movie channels, Movie Magic 1 and Movie Magic 2, were renamed M-Net Movies 1 and M-Net Movies 2, respectively, in 2005.^[7] Two additional movie channels, M-Net Movies Stars and M-Net Movies Action, were later launched. In October 2012, the original two movie channels were replaced with six HD channels which grouped films according to genre.^[8] Nine movie channels are currently broadcast by M-Net: M-Net Movies Premiere, Comedy, Family, Action+, Romance, Showcase, Action, Stars and Zone. In 2015 Comedy and Family fused together to form M-Net Movies Smile, with animated films during the day and comedy specials in the evening. Romance was incorporated to Showcase, which was later disbanded to form a new slot on Channel 109 for pop-up movie channels with themes such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, BlockParty, Blackout, and Blackbelt just to name a few.

M-Net Series

Most of the programmes broadcast are unique to M-Net Series but some are rebroadcasts of episodes previously shown on M-Net. The group originally consisted of three individual channels, but two, M-Net Series Showcase and M-Net Series Reality were discontinued in October 2014, leaving one channel, M-Net Series Zone remaining. Which in late 2014 were rebranded to VUZU AMP & M-Net City respectively also with the introduction of a premium series channel called M-Net Edge that plays mostly HBO series

A single series channel was introduced in 2000 as a sister channel to the original M-Net channel. On 9 July 2013, this channel was split into three, namely M-Net Series Showcase, M-Net Series Reality and M-Net Series Zone. On 11 September 2014, it was announced that Series Showcase and Series Reality would be discontinued and replaced with two new channels, VUZU AMP and M-Net Edge, on 20 and 13 October, respectively.

M-Net Series Showcase, which was broadcast in high definition, previously served as the primary series channel on which most new content unique to Series was broadcast. M-Net Series Reality broadcast talk shows and other reality media. These two channels were discontinued in October 2014, and replaced with two new channels, M-Net Edge and VUZU AMP, which are both broadcast in high definition. M-Net Series Zone currently serves as a catch-up channel, and features previous seasons of shows. Several TV shows also run back-to-back in marathon blocks.

On 9 July 2013, the single M-Net Series channel was split into three channels, namely M-Net Series Showcase, which was broadcast in HD, M-Net Series Reality and M-Net Series Zone.^[9] On 11 September 2014, it was announced that Series Showcase and Series Reality would be discontinued and replaced with two new channels, VUZU AMP and M-Net Edge, on 20 and 13 October, respectively.^[10] Only one channel of the original three, M-Net Series Zone, remains. The standalone channel is reminiscent of the initial M-Net Series channel, in that it airs shows that previously aired on the main M-Net channel.It was rebranded M-Net City in 2016.

M-Net Edge

The channel usually airs exclusive content that is usually straight after the U.S broadcast consisting of a bulk of series that are from the HBO channel. It was launched on 20 October 2014, after the discontinuation of two of M-Net's Series channels ^[11] and only broadcasts in the evenings from 18:30 on its Southern Africa feed and 21:00 on its East and West Africa feed. The channel was discontinued on 31 March 2017 and all the programs seen on the channel were put on M-Net as part of a merge. Programs seen on M-Net Edge are viewable later on various other channels from M-Net.

KykNet

kykNET, which broadcasts solely in Afrikaans, was launched in October 1999. The channel features general entertainment, series, informative programs and music. kykNET also has two sister channels, KykNet & Kie and KykNet Musiek.^[12] DStv announced on 16 July 2014 that kykNet would be broadcast in high-definition as of 12 August 2014.^[13]

It was launched in the UK on TalkTalk's IPTV service, TalkTalk Plus TV, in October 2013.^[14] However, it was dropped by TalkTalk in December 2015.^[15] A kykNet International service is now available online to subscribers in selected countries in North America, Europe and Australasia via the Showmax platform.^[16]

Other channels

• Vuzu has a strong focus on Southern African youth. A sister channel, VUZU AMP, was launched in October 2014.
• Mzanzi Magic features original South African series, movies, music, documentaries and reality shows. It has two sister channels, Mzansi Magic Music, Mzansi Wethu and Mzansi Biskop.
• Africa Magic comprises eight channels: Africa Magic Showcase, Epic Movies, Urban Movies, Family, World, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo. It was initially launched as a movie channel.
• Maisha Magic comprises two channels Maisha Magic East and Maisha Magic Bongo which focus on East African Movies, Series and Music. It was initially launched Africa Magic Swahili but was later rebranded as Maisha Magic Swahili then rebranded again as Maisha Magic East.
• Channel O is a music channel with a strong focus on urban music genres. Its rest of Africa feed, Channel O Africa has gone defunct since March 27, 2015 but its Southern Africa feed still exists.

All HD channels are aired in 1080i but are downscaled to SD if the subscriber isn't in possession of an HD or Explora decoder.