Gaborone — Multichoice Botswana will soon face stiff competition from the rival pay television station, GTV, established by former Multichoice manager, Billy Sekgororoane, who told Monitor that the commercialisation of pay television will be done in the next six weeks.

The owners of the pay channel are going ahead even without the authorisation of the licensing authorities here. They told Monitor that they are establishing the station based on a judgment awarded to Multichoice by the High Court not long ago against the National Broadcasting Board.

GTV wants to offer 'affordable rates' of P180 or less while giving them popular entertainment such as the English Premier League soccer games and the Series A live matches.

Its quality and affordable services are expected to create a rush thereby giving the current sole provider of pay television services, Multichoice, a serious challenge.

Multichoice offers Dstv services at P355 for premier channels and P180 for a compact bouquet, which offers extreme sports, news channels and movies.

Sekgororoane says initially the Pay TV would start with ten own channels, including contact sports showing boxing, rugby and others.

Sekgororoane said G-Prime, one of the channels, would be dedicated to movies, cartoons, documentaries and general entertainment.

There will also be play through channels such as Fox Sport Africa, BBC world, Sky News, CNN, Al Jazeera (English), Kiss - a music channel from England - Mtv based information as well as religious channels.

The station is already operating in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana is its latest target, according to Sekgororoane.

The new television channel, Sekgororoane told Monitor on Saturday, is part of US television, Gateway Broadcasting Services, which has now embarked on launching services in Africa.

The former Multichoice manager confirmed that right now people in Gaborone and other parts of Botswana get the new television channels' images, even if they may not know where they come from. He further said his company has already conducted signal tests, which are continuing.

"At my house we watch the new TV channel, and I am sure people watch it in their homes. What we are left with now is the commercialisation aspect of the channels. We are selling decoders right now, as well as smart cards for the new TV", Sekgororoane confirmed.

He also volunteered information that the service was this past Friday (June, 29), officially launched in Eastern African countries of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and that they are now readying to launch the pay TV here in Botswana.

"In Botswana it will be known as G.TV and it will be launched for subscribers within the next six weeks," said a confident sounding Sekgororoane.

"Everything is ready, we have conducted successful tests and everything is in place. The commercial launch will be done soon," Sekgororoane said.

Asked to say how they will start their operations without licensing from the National Broadcasting Board, Sekgororoane confidently said they are using the High Court ruling that awarded Multichoice the rights to broadcast in the country after the NBB denied them the same rights for which they applied.

"The court ruling that is used by Multichoice to continue its operations in the country said the NBB has no power to issue broadcasting licenses. That is the ruling that guides us because we are a broadcaster just like Multichoice," Sekgororoane said.

Confirmation of the registration of the new television station with the Chairman of the National BroadcastingBoard, Masego Mpotokwane, on his cell phone failed on Wednesday.

Monitor has since confirmed that the establishment of the new pay television channel would take everyone, including the licensing authorities, by surprise.

The Multichoice Botswana boss was out of the country and Monitor could not get his view about the impending competition.

Senior managers at Multichoice, who preferred not to be named, said they had heard about the impending establishment of a competing pay television station.

"We hear they have been recruiting from various Multichoice offices around the continent and that they are based somewhere at the Commerce Park.

"It could be true this time, because the service that is being talked about has been launched recently in other parts of the continent," revealed a Multichoice officer.