Zuku satellite TV services now has a new bouquet with 27 TV and 51 Radio stations. The new bouquet only available on satellite only is Ksh600 cheaper than the the previous cheapest Classic bouquet of Ksh999 with 68 TV and 51 radio stations.
Is this move meant to compete with Startimes Kenya whose cheapest bouquet Nyota costs only Ksh199 per month. Lets find out but first please scroll through the:-
TV Channels on Smart Pack bouquet
Zuku Zone
KBC
Citizen
KTN
NTV
K24
Kiss (KE)
EBRU
QTV
Kass TV
Zuku Entertainment
EATV
Lolwe TV
GBS
Inooro TV
Zuku Life
Al Jazeera (English)
TVC News
DW-TV
CCTV News
Zuku Kids
Smile of a Child
Hope TV
Family TV
Inspiration TV
Peace TV
Alerth Alnabawi
The Verdict
Honestly in my own opinion, this is the worst pay bouquet apart from the Startimes Nyota Bouquet. Its main purpose is to draw in first time customers who will end upgrading to either the Classic or Premium bouquets. Its filled with nothing but local channels which are freely available using a normal aerial and dvbt2 decoder. Its lacking a lot of vernacular TV channels which are also free on the digital terrestrial platform.
The good news is that people who live in areas not covered by the terrestrial signal will be the greatest beneficiaries of this bouquet as this will draw more customers from the recently increased Dstv access bouquet (Ksh930). Local channels is just what they need, nothing more.
From a free to air satellite point of view, one can receive most of the channels deliberately withheld from this bouquet. These are channels like
EBRU
AMC (the one that talks in English but has Portuguese subtitles)
MBC
CCTV 9 Documentary
BBC World News
Al Jazeera (English)
i24 News (English)
TVC News
Euronews (English)
DW-TV
CCTV News
Smile of a Child
France 24 (English)
I24 French
Dubai TV
Abu Dhabi TV
CCTV-4 (Chinese)
Hope TV
Emmanuel TV
EWTN
God TV
Family TV
Inspiration TV
Peace TV
Kaaba
Ahlulbayt TV
Hope International
Alerth Alnabawi (this one I’m not sure but let me just leave it here)
Receiving most of these channels does not even require a big dish, the small size 65cm zuku dish will work fine. You can do better Zuku, at-least add discovery science, Nat Geo and maybe a movies channel.
Read more about free to air satellite in the category FTA
I have a zuku dish and decoder, can i get help on installing free to air as suggested above?
Cheapest route is FTA decoder first, with same installation. It will give you SES 5 options, the likes of DW English, France 24 English, African news as source of international news, features and documentaries. With a small tilt of this dish, you’ll also get some channels from East that hosts Azam TV.
If you are also looking for movies, series, sports channels etc, you’ll then later plan for another dish installed that should be at least 90cm. With this you’ll get more channels from NIlesat 7West, Eutelsat 7 West etc.
In short, one more decoder now, another dish later.
I hope I am clear enough.