e.tv

About Us

e.tv (commonly referred to on-air as e) is the first and only privately owned free-to-air television station in South Africa. It is the fifth terrestrial television channel in the country, following three channels that are operated by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (that is SABC 1, SABC 2 and SABC 3) and the privately owned subscription-funded M-Net. In 1997, the e.tv channel bought the broadcasting rights to broadcast English Premier League (EPL) matches and, later on, they also bought the rights to broadcast UEFA Champions League matches.

Midi TV was the consortium that won the broadcasting licence in 1998 to operate the channel. It is majority-owned by black empowerment group Hosken Consolidated Investments (via its subsidiary eMedia Holdings), with Remgro having a minority-stake.^[2] Hosken Consolidated Investments’ major shareholder is the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union.^[3]

The consortium has had many changes in ownership, however the dominant player has always been HCI: it had bought out minority black shareholders who had failed to repay loans they used to purchase the Midi TV stake. Warner Bros. sold their 25% shareholding of the channel in 2001, concerned that they would never be able to exercise full ownership: South African media ownership law restricts foreign entities to owning no more than 25% of a television channel.

Marcel Golding, a former trade unionist, was controversially forced to resign as the station’s CEO in late October 2014, following the polemic purchase of shares he made in South African electronics equipment maker Ellies