End Of The Road For Starsat In South Africa

The development calls into doubt any hope by StarSat's paying customers that refunds owed to them following the forced shutdown of the company's operations last October will ever be paid.

"OnDigital Media, the independent broadcasting licence holder that processed StarSat's payments, has been liquidated," Jan Hendrick Harmse, marketing manager at StarSat told TechCentral via text message on Thursday.

Icasa brought StarSat's operations to a grinding halt last October when the communications regulator, working with the police, conducted a raid on StarSat's Midrand offices.

During the raid, Icasa confiscated equipment critical to StarSat's broadcasting operations, cutting off paying customers in South Africa and 23 other African markets where StarSat shareholder StarTimes operates pay-television services that compete with MultiChoice Group.

Speaking to TechCentral in the days following the raid, StarSat head of public affairs and strategy Pule Mabe said there were many occasions where the broadcaster tried to engage with Icasa to resolve the licensing issue, but Icasa was 'slow to respond to letters and meeting requests".