{"id":839301,"date":"2025-10-12T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=839301"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:28:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:28:34","slug":"great-news-for-anyone-with-dstv-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/839301\/great-news-for-anyone-with-dstv-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Great news for anyone with DStv in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DStv subscribers in South Africa may soon see significant changes to their content access, as the new parent company, Canal+, plans to merge its various streaming platforms into a single \u201csuper app.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French broadcaster recently completed its takeover of MultiChoice, marking its largest-ever acquisition and positioning the combined group as a major force in global media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move gives Canal+ control over MultiChoice\u2019s operations, including DStv, DStv Stream, GOtv, and Showmax, which together serve more than 14 million customers across Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has now said that the next step is to consolidate these services under a single digital platform that offers both local and international programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada noted that the group\u2019s aim is to simplify how viewers access content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to make it as convenient and pleasant as possible for our subscribers to access all this great content from companies all over the world, as well as the local sports and general entertainment content,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEventually, the vision should be close to including all of this content in one super app.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan continues MultiChoice\u2019s efforts to adapt to a changing television landscape where more viewers are shifting to on-demand streaming rather than traditional satellite services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The takeover by Canal+ brings the financial scale and content library of a large European broadcaster to MultiChoice\u2019s African base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saada has described international streaming services like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon as the group\u2019s main competition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By combining Canal+\u2019s and MultiChoice\u2019s resources, the company hopes to be in a stronger position to compete with these global players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Mignot, who now heads Canal+ Africa and the division that includes MultiChoice, said the companies\u2019 combined content libraries will give subscribers much more variety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMultiChoice content is incredible. We will have the ability to use the strengths of the two groups,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have the biggest library of European content, including a lot of American content, like 9,000 movies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to expect<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Mignot added that Canal+ currently produces about 4,000 hours of African content in as many as 15 languages each year, while MultiChoice produces around 6,000 hours of local content annually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCombined, we will roughly provide 10,000 hours per year in 20 to 35 languages. So, in a 10- to 15-year period, we are building up a catalogue of more than 100,000 to 150,000 hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the expanded catalogue will allow the company to distribute African and international productions more widely by translating or adapting them for different markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of its review of operations, Canal+ is also assessing whether to continue running all three of its existing streaming services, which are Showmax, DStv Stream, and its own Canal+ online platform, or to merge them into one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal is to minimise overlap and simplify navigation for subscribers to their content options. The merger has also brought leadership changes at the top of MultiChoice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ has appointed Mignot as CEO of Canal+ Africa and Nicolas Dandoy as Chief Financial Officer, replacing former MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela and CFO Tim Jacobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Mawela and Jacobs remain within the group. Mawela is now chairman of Canal+ Africa, while Jacobs takes on a senior role focused on integrating the companies\u2019 finance operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ also made changes to the MultiChoice board of directors, naming Saada as the new chair. The company said the new board will include Canal+ representatives but remain mostly independent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe MultiChoice board has made certain changes to its composition and leadership team to allow for suitable Canal+ representation, while maintaining its independence,\u201d Canal+ said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus now is on how the integration will affect viewers. While details about the timeline and structure of the proposed super app are still being finalised, the companies have indicated that they intend to create a more unified platform for streaming content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For subscribers, this could eventually mean fewer apps to manage and easier access to a broader mix of local and international entertainment, although how this will impact pricing and service options remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DStv subscribers in South Africa may soon see significant changes to the content that they can access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":642271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[6633,78,1253,853],"class_list":["post-839301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-canal","tag-dstv","tag-multichoice","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839332,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839301\/revisions\/839332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}