DStv under siege
DStv is under siege from an old nemesis — piracy. However, the battlefield has changed. A decade ago, it fought BitTorrent and Usenet downloads; today, the threat comes from pirate streaming platforms.
To address this problem, MultiChoice is investing millions in combating copyright infringement in South Africa and around the world.
DStv has been the dominant pay-TV operator in South Africa for three decades. It was launched in 1995 and was the first direct-to-home digital pay-TV service outside the United States.
With the collapse of the SABC, DStv became a must-have for households that could afford it. By 2006, MultiChoice South Africa had 1.5 million subscribers.
Today, MultiChoice has 14.5 million DStv subscribers — 7.0 million in South Africa and 7.5 million in the rest of Africa.
One of its main assets is SuperSport, a global leader in sports broadcasting. It offers DStv subscribers access to all prominent local and international sporting events.
MultiChoice chairman Elias Masilela said that although technology brought great benefits to their industry, it has also enabled broadcasting piracy to thrive.
“A rise in illegal streaming services and pirated content is eroding global industry revenues by an estimated 25% to 35% annually,” he said.
“This not only undermines the income of companies like ours but also erodes the livelihoods of those involved in the creative industry.”
He added that it negatively impacts economies by depriving countries of tax revenues and investment in the video entertainment industry.
“Together with broadcasters around the world, we are intensifying our efforts to combat this global scourge,” Masilela said.
MultiChoice and its cybersecurity subsidiary, Irdeto, are at the forefront of the fight against content piracy across Africa.
It utilises advanced anti-piracy tools, strategic partnerships with law enforcement and government agencies, and public awareness campaigns.
In 2024, MultiChoice, Irdeto, and South African law enforcement agencies conducted 10 major anti-piracy raids, including the shutdown of Waka TV, a large illegal streaming operation.
A powerful new alliance was also formed between Irdeto’s Anti-Piracy Unit and the Western Cape Provincial Commercial Crime Unit.
Rise of online piracy due to fragmented content
Broadcasting piracy is not the only challenge DStv faces. Traditional online piracy for movies and TV series is making a comeback.
The rise of Netflix, which offers an excellent streaming experience, initially saw many people move away from online piracy as Netflix solved their problem.
However, the fragmentation of content across multiple streaming platforms caused many people to return to online piracy.
Online video-on-demand content was centralised through Netflix. However, today, it is spread across platforms like Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Showmax.
To access the latest TV series and movies, consumers must subscribe to multiple services, which can be costly and inconvenient.
Online piracy platforms have all TV series and movies in one place, and using a service like Plex makes it easy and convenient to watch this content.
Therefore, many tech-savvy users opt for online piracy over pay-TV services like DStv and streaming platforms like Netflix and Showmax.
Axxess, one of South Africa’s largest Internet service providers, has reported a 20% increase in torrent activity in recent months.
This is a complex problem to overcome, as tracking, charging, and prosecuting individual users is impractical.
MultiChoice takes fight global
MultiChoice has shifted its anti-piracy fight from smaller resellers of IPTV services that provide illegal access to DStv content to the upstream providers in foreign countries that manage these services.
By blocking accounts linked to these operators during high-profile events, such as live sports broadcasts, MultiChoice hopes to discourage people from using illegal services.
In its most recent half-year results, the company reported that it had initiated 233 anti-piracy court cases, compared to 111 over the same period the previous year.
The figure for the second half of the year was not included in the company’s full-year results, which were published earlier in June.
MyBroadband followed up with the broadcaster to learn more about progress in its piracy crackdown. MultiChoice acknowledged a decline in anti-piracy court cases in the second half of the year.
However, it said this did not reflect reduced enforcement. Instead, it was shifting its strategy towards more targeted and efficient interventions.
“We have concentrated our resources on fewer higher-impact cases rather than volume, focusing on upstream targets which has a bigger impact on users of illegal piracy sites and apps,” MultiChoice said.
“Our monitoring and anti-piracy toolsets have evolved significantly in the past 12 months, allowing us to more easily identify and block our platform from being utilised in streaming piracy operations.”
MultiChoice stated that while many suspects were involved in selling and distributing piracy apps in South Africa, these were commonly resellers of global pirate platforms.
The company said its teams identified accounts used to resell streams and deployed countermeasures to block them.
MultiChoice stated that this practice undermines the credibility and reliability of piracy apps for users, particularly during major sporting events. This appears to be working.
MyBroadband has recently observed increased complaints on a major community Facebook group about the performance of a notorious IPTV service that illegally streams DStv channels — Waka TV.
Several users reported that the service’s on-demand offering remained reliable, but DStv channels had been frequently stuttering or were completely non-responsive in recent weeks.
The fact that the issues were specific to DStv channels, rather than the platform itself, could suggest they were due to MultiChoice’s interventions.
One user reported that Waka TV’s support line stated DStv was “sabotaging” the service. Searches for “Waka TV” on Facebook and X also revealed numerous complaints about DStv channel performance.
A version of this article was first published on Newsday and is reproduced with permission.
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