Now Africa’s real competition starts. Sunday evening saw the start of Big Brother Africa series 3, beamed across Africa by Multichoice, M-Net and DStv. Individual nations were generating hundreds of column inches as to who their “representative housemate” might be – and with $100,000 for the winner, plus fame and fortune for most of the contestants, this is a major TV event. Twelve housemates from a dozen countries (Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) have been selected for a 91-day adventure, and were being introduced to African viewers at around 7pm (CAT) on Sunday (Aug 24).

The hype has hardly been necessary, given the challenges BBA3 is going to have to face, not least some nations making formal objections to the sort of coverage that Big Brother is famous – and notorious – for.

Multichoice will be beaming the signals Africa-wide, and this means coverage in 47 countries and to more than 2m DTH subs. Last year Multichoice’s DStv added 456,000 new subs (140,000 in sub-Saharan Africa, plus South Africa itself) to March 31. The latest numbers have yet to be released but are said by insiders to have been “extraordinary”, no doubt helped in part by Multichoice’s impressive DStv SuperSport four-channel coverage of the Olympic Games, as well as the build up towards BBA3.

Multichoice is also busy rolling out HD over Africa, along with its HD-equipped PVR unit. These units will clearly appeal to some of Multichoice’s more wealthy DStv viewers, but Multichoice has also tailored pricing schemes for the less well-off, not least a basic bundle of 11 channels for just $2.50 a month ($30 a year).

And it is aggressively adding channels. Three BBC-generated channels (Lifestyle, Knowledge and Entertainment) will be added on September 1, for example.

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