Showmax shuts down
MultiChoice will shut down Showmax on Thursday, 30 April 2026, ending a service once positioned as the South African pay-TV giant’s answer to Netflix.
MultiChoice announced the plan to shut down Showmax in early March 2026. It said the decision was made following a comprehensive review of its streaming activities.
The company, now part of French media giant Groupe Canal+, said the substantial annual losses experienced by Showmax were unsustainable.
The streaming platform stopped accepting new subscribers from 31 March 2026, and MultiChoice set 30 April 2026 as the date on which it would shut down the streamer.
MultiChoice has moved Showmax Originals and other select titles to a dedicated Showmax section on the DStv Stream app.
“Showmax content on DStv will be available to Compact and Premium satellite and streaming-only customers via the DStv Stream app,” a spokesperson said.
“The move ensures award‑winning African stories remain widely available after the Showmax service closes.”
Existing Showmax customers have been given the option to continue paying the same R99 fee for DStv Stream Compact for a year.
From 30 April, qualifying customers get trial access to DStv Stream Compact, and the promotional R99-per-month price takes effect from 1 May.
The R99-per-month promotional price will run for a year, provided subscriber accounts remain up to date.
Launched in August 2015, MultiChoice positioned Showmax as a homegrown competitor to international giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
It prioritised local content and features suited for the African continent, and rapidly expanded to over 36 countries across sub-Saharan Africa within a year.
MultiChoice believed that Showmax would help it reach a combined subscriber base of 50 million users by 2028.
To achieve this, MultiChoice entered into a partnership agreement and sold a 30% stake in Showmax to Comcast’s NBCUniversal. The transaction concluded and took effect on 4 April 2023.
Multi-billion-rand relaunch fails to boost growth
The streaming platform underwent a significant redesign and relaunched on NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform in February 2024.
The relaunched platform featured a new logo with a bold red colour and a revamped design. The launch also introduced standalone subscriptions for entertainment and English Premier League soccer.
The change meant that users had to migrate to a completely new app and saw the phasing out of “Showmax Pro”, a premium subscription that bundled on-demand entertainment and live sports content.
MultiChoice’s initial projections accounted for Showmax reporting trading losses, and it predicted that these losses would start to reduce in 2025. However, the opposite happened.
It reported trading losses of R1.2 billion in 2023, R2.6 billion in 2024, and R4.9 billion in 2025. Over the same period, Showmax’s revenue declined from R1.027 billion to R753 million.
MultiChoice said the decline was somewhat expected and only temporary. It justified the financial burden Showmax was saddled with on highly optimistic forecasts.
MultiChoice’s bill for multi-year technology licensing fees with NBCUniversal for its Peacock platform reached R6.83 billion by the company’s 2024 financial year.
While these commitments were not yet recognised as obligations in its financial reporting, MultiChoice was contractually obligated to pay them.
Canal+ pulls the plug
As of March 2025, the commitments had decreased to R5.82 billion as some obligations had been fulfilled. However, the remaining liability remained substantial relative to Showmax’s revenue base.
Ultimately, poor leadership and decision-making left Showmax with crippling financial commitments before it had a chance to reach scale.
In a statement accompanying Groupe Canal+’s unaudited full-year results, the company said MultiChoice had failed to achieve the goals it set for Showmax.
Groupe Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada described Showmax as being an “expensive failure” and “not a commercial success” on two occasions in early 2026.
“As you know, this was a severely loss-making activity on which we saw no recovery, no matter what was done,” the CEO said.
Saada said Canal+ quickly reached an agreement with Comcast to shut down Showmax as soon as possible after acquiring control of MultiChoice, but he could not share details about the negotiations.
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