Radio Africa seems to have been emboldened after recent acquisition by the South Africa’s Times Media Group. Just as we predicted on this blog post, Radio Africa is seeking to disrupt the Pay TV market with a revolutionary “free premium TV” which they have christened Bamba TV.
With Bamba TV, all a subscriber needs is a Ksh 3,299 for the decoder and there will be no other payment ever. There will be no regular subscription fees like DSTV, GOtv, StarTimes or AzamTV. The recent launch of Bamba TV disrupted the market that DSTV reduced its decoder price to just Ksh 99 while StarTimes reduced theirs to Ksh 149 with each of the providers offering one free monthly subscription with decoder purchase.
The first BAMBA decoder is an HD box with a similar HD box from DSTV costs – Kes 4,999 plus you have to pay your monthly subscriptions on top of that. The Bamba TV HD box also has a USB port allowing you to play movies or music from your hard disk or flash disk.
Bamba TV promise to launch a standard definition box in the next week. The slim box has PVR, Time shift and USB support allowing you to schedule and record various channels as well as play your favourite downloaded movies. This will eliminate the need for a DVD player.
The BAMBA TV decoder automatically picks all the local channels so you will have your fill of the K24, Kass, KBC and all local free-to-air channels you are current watching. Fully updated, the Bamba TV will offer 53 channels on its free bouquet.
Sources at Radio Africa intimate that by January 15, they will release more offerings including 8 movie channels (including 3 Nigerian movie channels), 3 cartoon channels for the kids , 5 lifestyle channels including Fashion TV and Africa first 24 hour free to air telenovela channel – Romanza. They will even have documentary channels including TED TV and the War channel and wrestling and cage fighting channels.
- TYPE CHANNEL CATEGORY TARGET
- OWN Kiss TV MUSIC YOUTH
- Movie Club MOVIES FAMILY
- MOVIES Movee4U MOVIES FAMILY
- Films on Reels /Launch TV MOVIES FAMILY
- iFilms TV/ MOVIES FAMILY
- African Movie Channel MOVIES WOMEN
- Nollywood Channel MOVIES – NAIJA WOMEN
- Nollywood Movies MOVIES – NAIJA WOMEN
- TELENOVELA Romanza TELEVNOVELA WOMEN
- CARTOONS Cartoon Club KIDS KIDS
- Freckle TV KIDS KIDS
- Smile of a Child KIDS KIDS
- LIFESTYLE ES.TV FASHION WOMEN
- Recipe.TV FOOD WOMEN
- Fashion TV FASHION WOMEN
- Justice.TV COURT WOMEN
- Cars.TV CARS MEN
- SPORTS MMA Warriors SPORTS MEN
- WWWX SPORTS MEN
- NEWS Al Jazeera English NEWS MEN
- NHK NEWS MEN
- Deutsche Welle NEWS MEN
- France24 TV English NEWS MEN
- DOCUMENTARY War Channel DOCUMENTARY FAMILY
- TED TV DOCUMENTARY FAMILY
- RELIGION EWTN Africa RELIGION WOMEN
- God TV RELIGION WOMEN
- Peace TV RELIGION MEN
- FOOTBALL
Radio Africa recently poached a former Multichoice Kenya General Manager – Danny Mucira to run BAMBA TV. The competition in the premium TV front might just get very interesting in 2015.
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