Today's variety looks very tempting, full of alternatives, a veritable supermarket. In fact it's more like just a few shelves in a supermarket and where, under gaudy packaging, most of the merchandise is more or less the same. It is impossible to state accurately how many channels are currently available via DStv, simply because they're still filling up the many gaps. It's in the region of 50 but, as anyone with a decoder will affirm, after the first few weeks most subscribers look at just a few favourites. There is an absorption limit to Naas Botha's rugby deconstruction after which mental asthma sets in.
Movies are plentiful.
Here and there something of some specific gravity creeps in, but most of the menu is tenaciously fluffhead. DStv English news is provided by only three institutions, the BBC, Sky News and CNN SABC and e.tv fool's English newscasts are also available here. Children's telly is provided by M-Net's KTV and the very limited compilations of the Cartoon Channel. There is a very strong case to be made for DStv to offer its product on flexible terms. As it is, its clients have no choice at all.