The official launching of ZAP TV took place Wednesday in Praia, and potential customers may already make their way to CV Multimédia and CV Telecom agencies to subsribe to the service, which includes 20 foreign television channels and one Cape Verdean network, Cape Verdean Television (TCV).

Among the channels offered are SIC Notícias, TV Record, Rai Uno, BBC World, TV5, TV Galicia, Infinito, Fox Life, Fashion TV, Euronews, Eurosport, Extreme Sport, TVE Internacional, CNBC, MCM, RTP-África, Lusomundo Premium, Lusomundo Gallery and Playboy. Some of the most sought-after Portuguese-language channels, such as Portugal’s SportTv, SIC, TVI, RTP1 and RTP2, or Brazil’s Globo, are not included in the package.

According to CV Multimédia, however, Globo will be included as soon as a number of technical problems related to the reception of the Brazilian channel’s satellite signals are resolved.

CV Telecom executive commission president Pires Correia highlighted the pioneering nature of the project not only in Cape Verde but in Africa, adding that the technical solutions adopted for the distribution of ZAP TV will also allow for the improvement of other services and products offered by CV Telecom.

ZAP TV’s triple-play technology will transmit three different products on a single pair of copper wires - cable television signals, telephone signal and broad-band Internet.

The ceremony in which ZAP TV was launched was attended by the president of CV Telecom’s main shareholder, Portugal Telecom, Henrique Granadeiro, who highlighted the new project’s contribution to the improvement of the partnership between his company and the State of Cape Verde. Granadeiro expressed his hopes that the partnership would move beyond its current parameters, currently limited to the Cape Verdean market, and challenged the government to join Portugal Telecom in a “Pan-African” telecommunications mega-project.

Cape Verdean Prime Minister José Maria Neves expressed his satisfaction with the perspectives of development opened up by the partnership with Portugal Telecom, and affirmed that Cape Verdeans “have reason to commemorate” the arrival of the country’s first cable TV service, which constitutes yet another step towards placing Cape Verde on the “front lines” of the telecommunications and new technology sector in Africa.