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New channel leaves viewers furious

Cape Town – The movie The Fast and the Furious proved to be too fast for the new Studio Universal channel that launched on Friday on MultiChoice's DStv.

The movie starring Vin Diesel kicked off the new channel but the audio lagged behind and viewers were furious.

Frustrated viewers tuning in on DStv's channel 119 suffered technical problems which allowed them see the movie while being subjected to a delayed soundtrack that was out of sync.

Other sound problems also crept up intermittently over the course of the weekend across Africa, according to viewers. The family-centered Studio Universal movie channel launched in South Africa as well as 46 other countries in Africa.

Family friendly?

Viewers also complained about a Studio Universal introductory promo that specifically selected a clip of a screaming Eddie Murphy shouting "mother of god!" touting the launch of the new channel.

Viewers expressed doubt as to exactly how family friendly the Studio Universal channel would actually be and said they're put off by the unexpected crass language in the heavily-shown promo.

"We get and understand the frustration from viewers about repeats," said Universal Networks International's Colin McLeod, the managing director for emerging markets for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region at the launch of the channel.

"Initially movies on Studio Universal might also be elsewhere but soon the Studio Universal movies will be for us. We get them for a time period, and we'll air them, we'll rest them, we'll air them again. We'll get them for roughly 12 months and there will be a quick turn-over of movies on the channel," he said.

Universal Channel success

Africa is only the third continent, after South America and Italy in Europe, where Studio Universal has been rolled out. The addition of Studio Universal has been helped in part by the success of the Universal Channel (DStv channel 108) that's the number one channel in Africa in terms of viewership on the continent.

"Studio Universal is our very cherished movie brand. We don't launch it everywhere. Conditions have to be right for bringing a brand like Studio Universal into the market. It's part of our DNA. We don't want to bring the Studio Universal channel in and then have to make it right," McLeod said.

"Studio Universal is about blockbusters, it's about great entertainment, it's about escapism, it's about family viewing. We thought hard about this and how we're doing this because you have to make a channel such as this work on a platform such as DStv where there's already other movie channels and rich content," he said.

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