French media group Canal+ has announced a €100 million turnaround plan to revive growth at MultiChoice, Africa’s largest pay-TV operator, after the DStv owner lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers and suffered a decline in revenue in 2025.

MultiChoice

The move follows Canal+’s full takeover of the South Africa-based broadcaster, which has been squeezed by weaker household purchasing power across Africa and intensifying competition from global streaming platforms.

According to Canal+’s latest financial disclosures, MultiChoice ended 2025 with 14.4 million subscribers, down from 14.9 million a year earlier, while revenue fell 6 per cent to €2.4 billion.

Adjusted earnings before interest and tax dropped 14 per cent to €159 million, prompting Canal+ to describe 2025 as “another challenging year” marked by falling subscriber numbers and an unsustainably high cost base.

The group cited currency depreciation in key markets such as Nigeria and persistent electricity shortages as major headwinds making it harder for households to maintain pay-TV subscriptions.

Canal+ also pointed to problems at Showmax, MultiChoice’s streaming service, describing one of its key contracts as an “expensive failure” and confirming that the arrangement is being shut down as part of a wider refocus on the core pay-TV business.

Under the new “boost plan,” which will roll out from 2026, Canal+ aims to restart subscriber growth and improve profitability across MultiChoice’s footprint by investing in content, pricing, distribution and sales.

On content, the French group says it plans to assemble the “best content on the African continent” by blending premium international programmes with more locally produced films, series and sports tailored to African audiences.

It will also simplify subscription packages and adjust pricing structures to make DStv and related offerings easier for customers to understand and afford.

To expand reach, Canal+ intends to subsidise hardware such as decoders and satellite dishes, lowering entry costs for new users.

In addition, the company will recruit more than 1,000 sales staff across African markets as it shifts MultiChoice towards a more aggressive, “sales-focused” model designed to win back and attract subscribers.

Alongside this investment push, Canal+ is embarking on significant cost-cutting measures, including a voluntary severance plan for some MultiChoice support staff and a restructuring of Irdeto, its technology and cybersecurity subsidiary.

Canal+ now expects to generate over €250 million in synergies by 2026, up from an earlier €150 million estimate, driven by the shutdown of loss-making Showmax contracts, operational restructuring at MultiChoice and rationalisation of company-owned properties.

The cost of delivering these savings is projected at between €70 million and €100 million. Despite the planned reforms, the group still anticipates a slight further decline in MultiChoice’s subscriber base in 2026, though the pace of losses is expected to slow, with adjusted earnings before interest and tax forecast to rise modestly to about €170 million as cost savings begin to offset weaker revenue and higher expenses.

Canal+ gained effective control of MultiChoice on 20 September 2025 after acquiring a majority stake, later buying out remaining shareholders and delisting the company from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in December 2025.

The French media group has said it intends to complete a secondary listing on the JSE before June 2026 to reinforce its presence in Africa’s fast-growing media and entertainment market.

The €100 million boost plan underlines the mounting pressure on traditional pay-TV operators across the continent as currency weakness, rising living costs and rapid expansion of streaming services force a strategic rethink of legacy television business models.

Maxime Saada CEO of Canal+ has announced plans to deploy the company’s over-the-top (OTT) platform, the Canal+ app, across MultiChoice territories including South Africa to replace the loss-making Showmax streaming service.

Canal+

The move follows MultiChoice’s March 5 announcement to shut down Showmax, with Canal+ confirming no service disruptions for subscribers during the transition to its superior platform.

Saada described Showmax as a “severely loss-making activity” with no path to recovery despite heavy investments in content, marketing, and technology.

“We quickly agreed with Comcast to shut it down as soon as possible,” he said, prioritising a seamless migration to the Canal+ app already successfully deployed in French-speaking Africa.

Showmax recorded cumulative trading losses of R8.7 billion (approximately N1.3 trillion) over three years – R1.2 billion in 2023, R2.6 billion in 2024, and R4.9 billion in 2025 – far exceeding MultiChoice’s projections despite positioning it as Africa’s streaming growth engine. Canal+ cited the unsustainable losses in a capital-intensive global streaming market as the key factor behind the closure.

Canal+ Africa CEO David Mignot said all Showmax content and features will migrate to DStv Stream, ensuring continuity for subscribers.

Unlike U.S. markets where direct-to-home (DTH) satellite customers rapidly abandon traditional TV for pure streaming, Canal+ noted its DTH base retains access to its OTT platform, slowing cord-cutting trends across Africa.

The Showmax closure will not involve retrenchments, with MultiChoice supporting affected employees through transition options. Subscribers received assurances of uninterrupted streaming during the phase-out, with detailed timelines and migration plans to follow.

Saada and Mignot had previously signalled Showmax’s demise, with the CEO calling it a commercial failure in January 2026 and Mignot declaring it financially unviable in February.

Canal+ positions the Canal+ app rollout as delivering a stronger streaming experience while leveraging MultiChoice’s DStv infrastructure for hybrid DTH-OTT delivery across 50 million+ African households.

Starting February 2027, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has mandated mobile network operators and other communications service providers to notify it within four hours of detecting any cyberattack.

This is aimed at strengthening the protection of telecom infrastructure and subscriber data.

The directive is contained in the Cyber Resilience Framework for the Nigerian Communications Sector (CRF-NCS) released by the NCC last month.

According to the NCC, the rule will take effect in February 2027, giving operators a year to put in place the necessary monitoring and reporting systems.

Under the framework, telecommunications companies must alert the regulator within four hours of detecting a cyber incident and continue to provide updates every four hours until the situation is contained.

Operators are also required to submit a confirmation report within 24 hours through a dedicated reporting portal.

The commission said the framework is designed to strengthen cybersecurity oversight in a sector that handles vast volumes of sensitive consumer and national infrastructure data.

Cyber threats targeting telecom networks can lead to service disruptions, data breaches affecting subscriber information, malware infections and other attacks capable of crippling communications systems, according to the regulator.

By introducing faster reporting timelines, the commission said it hopes to improve sector-wide situational awareness and ensure quicker response to threats before they escalate into major outages or data compromises.

The framework also requires telecommunications companies to establish dedicated Security Operations Centres (SOC) to monitor networks continuously for suspicious activity and cyber threats.

These centres are expected to detect and report malicious activities promptly while coordinating responses internally.

In addition, each operator must designate a cybersecurity lead responsible for working with the commission’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) to share intelligence and coordinate responses to incidents affecting the communications ecosystem.

The NCC said the new framework forms part of broader efforts to strengthen resilience across Nigeria’s communications infrastructure and promote a unified cybersecurity posture in the sector.

The measures come amid growing global and domestic concern over data breaches and cyber intrusions targeting companies that manage large volumes of digital information.

Telecommunications companies, which serve as gateways for internet traffic, mobile banking, messaging and other digital services, are increasingly seen as critical infrastructure vulnerable to cyber threats.

Nigeria’s telecom regulator has in recent years tightened rules around data protection and network security as the country’s digital economy expands.