Dr Dish brings Kwese TV to Zimbabwe (Press Release)

Dr Dish (Private) Limited wishes to announce that it has struck a ground breaking Content Distribution deal with Econet Media Limited, a Pan African Broadcasting Network, to bring Kwese
TV into Zimbabwe.

Dr Dish is a duly Licensed Broadcasting Service provider with a valid Content Distribution Service License number CD0004 which was issued by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe on the 18th October 2012, in terms of Section 10 of the Broadcasting Services Act. The license is valid for 10 years, and will be expire on 17th September 2022.

Dr Dish had been distributing content on behalf of My TV Africa until the latter lost its content rights for the Zimbabwe Territory and consequently migrated it’s Channels to Eutelsat 16A whose Satellite Footprint does not cover Zimbabwe.

This development, forced Dr Dish to suspend its services, and commence the arduous process of searching for an alternative service provider who would have content relevant to the rapidly evolving Zimbabwean consumer.

Talks with Econet Media Limited, a Mauritian based Pan African Television network have been going on for some time until a deal was finally concluded in October 2016. Announcing this development the Executive Chairman of Dr Dish, Mr Nyasha Muzavazi explained, “We were so excited about this development that we immediately notified the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe, in terms of Section 17 of the Broadcasting Services Act Chapter 12:06 as part of the administrative and regulatory requirements. We notified our regulator that we were partnering with Kwese, and gave them the full details of the channels we were going to bring to the nation, together with a whole host of other technical information”

Dr Dish originally intended to bring the Kwese service to Zimbabwe in January of 2017, but had to wait for Zimbabwe to get its slot in the ongoing pan- African rollout which Kwese is currently involved with.

In terms of readiness and investment in preparing to launch Mr Muzavazi, explained “The parties have been working tirelessly since then and making all necessary preparations for the launch of Kwese in Zimbabwe. A lot of work has gone into building a powerful distribution infrastructure, recruitment, training and development of Kwese’s installation teams, the high-tech Kwese Technites, customer service training, advertising and other work”

Dr Dish has also successfully secured the participation of Econet Kwese Television Zimbabwe (Private) Limited as part of its establishment, in compliance with the regulations.

Announcing the choice of Econet Media as a partner, Mr Muzavazi said “We are very excited about our partnership because Econet Media is a next generation African media player whose multiplatform offering includes direct to home satellite services (DTH), a mobile app – Kwese App which includes the popular sports all Kwese Free Sports (KFS) App, broadband television service Kwese Play, digital sports service KweseESPN amongst others. With a presence in 23 countries and over 75m eye balls across Africa we could not miss the opportunity to bring Kwese TV to Zimbabwe. The final piece in ensuring we achieve this was to make sure that our license fees were all up to date, and that was done this week. We are now ready to launch Kwese. The wait is now over!”

This development represents one of the biggest investments in the media space the country has witnessed for sometime now resulting in hundreds of direct jobs and downstream employment.