DStv under siege
DStv is facing significant challenges from streaming services that are noticeably cheaper and offer a richer content library, Merchant West portfolio manager Izak van Niekerk has said.
Canal+ recently published its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2026, which revealed that MultiChoice’s revenue had declined by another €36 million (R687 million).
The financial statements showed that MultiChoice’s half-yearly revenue had declined from €1.22 billion (R23.29 billion) to €1.184 billion (R22.6 billion).
Canal+ tried to frame this as an improvement, saying MultiChoice’s revenue decline had narrowed to -2.95%, including a 1% decrease in subscription revenues.
However, it also said that MultiChoice Group’s subscriber portfolio was broadly flat compared to H1 2025.
“The historical declining trend was offset by the success of key sports competitions such as the Africa Cup of Nations and the FIFA World Cup,” Canal+ said.
Simply put, any improvements in MultiChoice’s revenue and subscriber base were driven by the world’s largest sporting tournament, which only happens once every four years.
Not mentioned in the results was that MultiChoice had made the FIFA World Cup available to subscribers on its cheapest pay-TV package, DStv Access.
This meant MultiChoice’s revenue was likely bolstered by an influx of new subscribers to its lowest-margin package for the duration of the World Cup.
With the tournament over, those subscribers will probably cancel their packages again. Without a similarly popular event to boost its numbers, DStv’s slide is likely to continue.
MultiChoice has faced this problem for years. DStv has continued to lose customers while MultiChoice struggled to establish new revenue streams.
Canal+ did not report DStv’s subscriber numbers separately in its H1 2026 results, but its 2025 annual report showed that the MultiChoice base declined from 14.9 million to 14.4 million customers.
Canal+ financial report hid what happened at DStv
Grant Nader, the CEO of Benguela Global Fund Managers, told Business Day TV that Canal+’s revenue grew when MultiChoice was excluded from its numbers.
“They had good operating leverage. Earnings came through around 13%, so they are getting good cost efficiencies,” said Nader.
Regarding the sudden jump in Canal+’s share price following the publication of its half-year results, Nader said they were a welcome surprise.
“I don’t get too excited, but like the market, I think the results surprised to the upside. Perhaps there’s some potential there if they get the business model right,” he said.
“I was surprised to see that earnings growth. However, I think it’s an industry that still faces a lot of challenges, and they rely heavily on sports to retain and grow viewers.”
Van Niekerk agreed, cautioning that the benefit Canal+ and DStv got from the World Cup was difficult to gauge.
“The results refer to overall subscriber growth, and they didn’t really release specific numbers on what actually happened on the DStv side,” he said.
“They did state that they had their lowest churn in a long time, but I do think that was artificially and temporarily boosted by people reactivating DStv for the World Cup.”
Van Niekerk said his concern was that the momentum might not last beyond the World Cup period and that live sports mainly kept DStv going.
“Their recent renewal of the Premier League rights will help — but in the longer term, this business could be challenged as players like Netflix continue attempting to secure live sports rights,” he said.
“Ultimately, it’s a business facing challenges to what little moat it has left, and affordability remains a major hurdle for them compared to streaming platforms.”
Canal+ share price since publishing H1 2026 results
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