StarSat subscribers have had their BET channel suddenly ripped away from them with no word nor warning. TVSA has been receiving queries about it through the day which strongly suggests that neither StarSat nor BET has bothered to tell anyone.
The reason it's gone: the
BET International channel on StarSat was discontinued on Tuesday (1 December) to coincide with the discontinuation of the
BET2 channel on DStv. They're both the same secondary BET channel with different names.
The move coincides with the extension of the
main BET channel on DStv. The channel has only been available to Premium subscribers but
extended to Compact and Extra subscribers from Tuesday.
In a nutshell: additional subscribers are getting BET on DStv while StarSat subscribers have lost access without being told. There isn't even an explanatory message when you switch to the channel - all you get is an abrupt exclamation that the "programme doesn't exist!", as if you've tried to access something you shouldn't.
Not even StarSat's website knows about it. Quite the opposite. The site has BET as a main headline attraction on the
channels page:
It's also still listed when you browse their
channel line-up.
All in all it's a rude mess. StarSat subscribers have had BET longer than DStv subscribers and they haven't even been given the courtesy of being told that it's gone.