Making DStv great again
Groupe Canal+ is preparing a secondary inward listing on the JSE while trying to turn around DStv, as the South African pay-TV giant is now key to its African growth plans after Showmax failed.
The listing fulfilled a commitment Canal+ made during the MultiChoice acquisition, and the French media group’s shares are set to begin trading on the JSE’s main board on Wednesday, 3 June 2026.
Its pre-listing announcement said the listing would give South African investors direct exposure to Canal+ after MultiChoice’s JSE delisting at the end of 2025.
The company said South African investors would trade its shares in rand, while the stock would remain fully fungible with its London-listed shares.
Canal+ described MultiChoice as Africa’s leading entertainment platform, with products including DStv, GOtv, M-Net, SuperSport, Irdeto, and KingMakers.
According to the pre-listing statement, the combined group had more than 42 million subscribers globally at the end of 2025, operating in over 70 countries and employing around 15,000 people.
Canal+ said its Africa and Asia segment had 23 million pay-TV subscribers across more than 40 countries, with content in over 50 languages.
However, DStv was in serious trouble when Canal+ took over the MultiChoice Group, reporting rapidly declining subscriber numbers and revenue.
DStv’s subscriber numbers peaked at 17.3 million in March 2023 and have been in decline since then.
Canal+ no longer breaks down DStv subscribers by region or by the market segmentation of its packages.
However, MultiChoice’s integrated annual report for the year that ended 31 March 2025 revealed that the number of DStv subscribers in South Africa declined by 589,000.
MultiChoice reported subscriber declines in South Africa each year from 2021 to 2025, and it was likely that this trend continued into 2026.
In 2025, it was striking that all segments of the DStv subscriber base declined, indicating an accelerating trend.
The premium base, which included Compact Plus and DStv Premium, declined by 96,000 subscribers. This represented a year-on-year decline of 9%.
MultiChoice’s middle-market subscribers declined by 99,000, representing a year-on-year reduction of 5% among DStv Compact and Commercial package subscribers.
The mass-market tier, including DStv Access and DStv Family, was down by 394,000, a year-on-year decline of 9%. This was the second year it experienced a decline.
Significant growth opportunity — Canal+
Canal+ said Sub-Saharan Africa remained a significant growth opportunity, supported by population growth, rising GDP, electrification, and low streaming service penetration.
However, to achieve its growth ambitions, Canal+ needs to improve DStv’s performance. MultiChoice had previously billed Showmax as its engine for future growth, but that proved a costly mistake.
Canal+ labelled Showmax an expensive failure and shut the South African streaming platform down on 30 April 2026 as part of its turnaround plan.
MultiChoice attributed roughly R8.7 billion in trading losses over three financial years to Showmax’s relaunch, content acquisition, and platform licensing fees.
The pre-listing statement showed Showmax revenue fell from €12 million (R227 million) in the first quarter of 2025 to €9 million (R170 million) in the first quarter of 2026.
Canal+’s 2025 results showed MultiChoice revenue dropped by €142 million, or R2.69 billion, while the broadcaster lost roughly half a million subscribers.
MultiChoice contributed €2.4 billion in revenue and 14.4 million subscribers to the combined Canal+ group.
However, MultiChoice’s free cash flow for the year was -€42 million, compared with a positive €489 million from Canal+’s historical perimeter, excluding Vietnam.
Canal+’s turnaround plan
Canal+ previously said it would spend up to €100 million (R1.9 billion) to support MultiChoice’s turnaround and sustainable growth.
That included reducing headcount at the MultiChoice headquarters and at the cybersecurity subsidiary Irdeto through voluntary severance packages, and hiring 1,000 additional field sales staff.
Canal+ said its recovery plan was built around four pillars: better content, clearer commercial propositions, stronger distribution, and operational excellence at scale.
The first pillar focuses on improving the content proposition in Africa through joint products, in-house channels, global partnerships, and local production.
Canal+ said producing many hours of African local content and retaining key sports rights remained cornerstones of the MultiChoice business.
The second pillar focuses on simplifying MultiChoice’s commercial propositions by clarifying pricing, strengthening branding, and improving marketing across its markets.
The third pillar aims to grow subscribers by lowering entry costs through hardware subsidies, expanding distribution, and strengthening its salesforce.
Canal+ has also said it would expand points of sale, grow its installer base, and increase marketing and branding investment across Africa.
The fourth pillar, operational excellence at scale, included voluntary severance packages at MultiChoice support functions and the restructuring of Irdeto.
Canal+ said these measures would improve operational efficiency through best practices and a standardised operating model across the group’s markets.
The company said it expected to unlock over €400 million in adjusted earnings before interest and tax cost synergies and over €300 million in free cash flow synergies from 2030.
However, Canal+’s cost-cutting plan is constrained in South Africa by merger conditions that block retrenchments for three years.
The Competition Commission has clarified that voluntary severance packages are not covered by the moratorium, giving Canal+ some room to reduce staff.
With Canal+ taking control in September 2025, the retrenchment moratorium is expected to expire in 2028, before its 2030 cost savings targets.
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