Roll-out of free-to-air DTH bouquets rising in Sub-Saharan Africa

These offers, which bundle free channels into identifiable packages accessible through the purchase of specific set-top-boxes, are currently received by more than 8 million households in the region – a number to put in relation with the current 23.4 million FTA households with regular satellite reception.

The roll-out of FTA DTH bouquets goes along with the strategy of a satellite operator to build an orbital position targeting a specific country. Dataxis’ latest studies have shown that the broadcast capacity provided by Eutelsat and SES respectively to MultiTV and TNTSat reaches 5 million households in Ghana and 150 000 households in Mali.

The distribution of DTH FTA set-top-box strategies has also been analysed, as the one deployed by Strong Technologies. The manufacturer launched a hybrid pay TV and FTA bouquet called “MyTV”, that reaches more than 2 million households across Africa today.

Considering Dataxis projections, FTA DTH bouquet stands as a sustainable model with growth potential in several countries. In addition to the South African Openview, which exceeded 1.5 million connected homes in 2019, the launch of the OurTV bouquet (Trefoil Network) in Nigeria last  February and that of RCS Ghana, hosted on Eutelsat since April, bear witness to this success.