2025 has been a year of upheaval at South Africa’s biggest pay-TV service, DStv, whose parent company was taken over by a foreign broadcasting giant.
French firm Canal+ has a challenging task ahead to return the three-decade-old MultiChoice to growth after worrying operational and financial performance in recent years.
Driven by the increased uptake of international video streaming services, DStv has been bleeding customers and revenue over the last two years.
Subscribers have dropped from a peak of 17.3 million in March 2023 to 14.5 million by March 2025. Its exodus of valuable Premium customers has been particularly problematic.
DStv’s revenues have also shrunk from R59.1 billion to R50.8 billion, while trading profit has declined by 60% — from R10 billion to R4 billion.
Although Canal+ has yet to reveal a clear strategy for turning the ship around, the company has hinted at refocusing the broadcaster’s attention on its primary business — entertainment.
That would go against MultiChoice’s strategy under former CEO Calvo Mawela, who oversaw several diversification ventures.
Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada and Canal+ Africa CEO David Mignot have also promised an expanded content slate that leverages the combined businesses of the two broadcasting giants.
In an attempt to reduce costs, Canal+ suspended payments to dozens of service providers earlier this year. It asked for a blanket 20% discount on invoices.
However, this negotiation tactic proved unsuccessful, and it soon had to walk back the payment freeze. Canal+ was also cautioned that SMMEs were impacted, which could violate the terms of its merger.
These types of interventions may also only help in the short term. To be successful in the long run, DStv must increase its revenues, which will require price increases or customer growth.
Considering the high level of customer dissatisfaction over its past price increases, retaining and increasing subscribers will likely be the key.
On this front, MultiChoice has made several changes in 2025 aimed at enhancing the service’s value. In March, it upped the concurrent streaming limit on Premium, Compact Plus, and Compact to two.
The controversial decision to reduce this limit to one device in early 2021 sparked a backlash from customers.
While MultiChoice defended the move as part of its efforts to combat piracy and password sharing, it also eroded the value of its products for legitimate users.
MultiChoice’s solution was the Extra Stream product, which allowed users to add an additional concurrent stream for a fee. However, this did not appear to have the desired effect on customer retention.
DStv Rewards boost, free channel upgrades, and extra streams
Since Canal+ officially assumed control of MultiChoice in September 2025, many more enhancements have been made.
Firstly, DStv made it possible for customers to pay for their subscriptions using “coins” earned in its DStv Rewards loyalty programme in mid-October 2025.
Within a month, customers had redeemed more than 1.6 million coins to partially or fully pay for their subscriptions, while usage of the programme jumped 83%.
In November 2025, MultiChoice held an open weekend during which all decoder customers gained access to its Premium bouquet of channels for a weekend.
It immediately followed this up with the Thol-iUpsize channel upgrade promotion. Until the end of January 2026, decoder customers on Access and Family have access to all Compact channels.
Compact and Compact Plus customers can watch all Premium channels, including DStv’s popular live sports channels. DStv Premium customers got an extra two concurrent streams.
These types of promotions are typically aimed at encouraging users on lower-end packages to upgrade to higher-end offerings permanently.
As part of its 30th Birthday Celebration, DStv also slashed its decoder prices by 40% to as little as R299 from its own online store.
Higher prices and lost channels
Not all the changes at DStv in 2025 have been for the better. As the broadcaster usually does, it increased prices in April 2025.
DStv Premium customers got the biggest hike of R50, while Compact Plus customers received a hefty R40 increase.
The access fee for connectivity features and dual-view support increased by R5, while the Add Movies option became R20 more expensive.
The 2025 price adjustments may be the last to happen in April, which is no longer the start of MultiChoice’s financial year.
Canal+ has confirmed that it will adjust MultiChoice’s financial year to run concurrently with its own, from January to December.
DStv is also set to lose four channels from Paramount Africa and ABC AMC, with another 12 from Warner Bros. Discovery under threat of axing.
The channels that are already confirmed to be discontinued are BET Africa, MTV Base, CBS Reality, and CBS Justice.
The 12 at-risk channels are Cartoon Network, Cartoonito, CNN, Discovery, Discovery Family, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TLC, TNT Africa, Travel Channel, and Real Time.
On the upside, DStv added two new channels for all its customers — Bravo Africa and SuperSport Afcon.
Compact and Family subscribers got a respective five and six new channels from the more expensive bouquets.
EasyView subscribers also got the SuperSport Schools channel, while Access customers gained access to Nicktoons and Zee World.
Author: Kayitsi Connect
