Econet’s Pay TV Subsidiary Kwese Has Been Put Under Administration

Econet Media, the pay TV subsidiary known in the continent as Kwese, has been put under administration, as Business Day reports.

Kwese TV could not apparently be able to catch up with DStv’s two decade start in the continent and abandoned the pay TV model for a free to air approach as of 2018.

Its CEO, Joseph Hundah said that they will begin talks with its creditors to rescue the business. He told the publication that the free-to-air business was too small to sustain the financial burden of its satellite operations which led to the decision to negotiate with creditors.

“The group’s inability to exit money out of Zimbabwe has had an impact,” Hundah was quoted as saying. He also assures that no other business in the Econet Group is affected by this administration process.

The CEO also says that the company has appointed Ernst & Young accountants to manage the process.

Interesting enough, Hundah said that Kwese TV will continue to operate its free-to-air business in the rest of Africa as normal.

As a sidenote, in March, the Independent Communications of SA awarded Kwese a free to air TV broadcasting licence. This licence was meant to compete with broadcasters like SABC and etv after a process that took almost two years. This service called Kwese Free TV is yet to launch.

This news about Kwese being brought under administration comes after several Southern Africa publications reported about disruption of service experienced by Kwese Play users. Apparently, subscribers got a messages on their TV saying “Econet no longer offers Kwese Play”. However, Econet put out a statement where they said it was a technical glitch that involved subscribers who were using Econet’s Roku powered streaming platform.