{"id":598605,"date":"2025-06-17T19:13:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=598605"},"modified":"2025-06-17T19:13:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:13:25","slug":"dstv-stream-a-winner-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/598605-dstv-stream-a-winner-2.html","title":{"rendered":"DStv Stream a winner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While DStv’s satellite business took some heavy hits in the past year, its streaming-only subscriptions showed exceptional growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the broadcaster’s latest annual results, DStv Stream revenues increased 48% between its 2024 and 2025 financial years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally called DStv Now, the service was exclusively available to satellite subscribers for six years after its launch in 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, MultiChoice rolled out standalone subscriptions with launch prices that matched its satellite plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from not requiring a decoder or dish, the product provided little benefit over the satellite plans. After a streaming limit change in early 2022, it became even less attractive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2023, the platform was rebranded to DStv Stream and prices were dropped across most packages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past year, MultiChoice has increasingly focused on upgrading the platform and tweaking pricing and features to meet customers’ requirements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent interview with MyBroadband, MultiChoice chief financial officer Tim Jacobs attributed the 48% revenue increase to a combination of three factors \u2014 price, convenience, and user experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The discount factor where you can get a linear product at a cheaper rate is definitely one of the big attractions,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DStv introduced a 12-month contract for its top-end Premium package at R699 per month in late 2024. That price was the same as what a regular DStv Premium subscription cost in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is currently R250 \u2014 or 26% \u2014 cheaper than the 24-month DStv Premium satellite contract, priced at R949 per month without a decoder or dish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the month-to-month package is R100 more expensive, it is still R180 cheaper than the DStv Premium satellite product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DStv Stream Compact Plus, Compact, Family, and Access packages are also more affordable than their equivalent satellite-based subscriptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Multichoice retained 2024’s pricing for these subscriptions after its annual price adjustments in April, amplifying the discounts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below compares the prices of DStv’s satellite and streaming packages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/th>Satellite <\/th>Streaming-only<\/th>Saving<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
DStv Premium contract<\/td>R949
(24 months)<\/td>		R699
(12 months)<\/td>		-R250<\/mark><\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
DStv Premium<\/td>R979<\/td>R799<\/td>-R180<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
DStv Compact Plus<\/td>R659<\/td>R549<\/td>-R110<\/mark><\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
DStv Compact <\/td>R419<\/td>R299<\/td>-R120<\/mark><\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
DStv Family<\/td>R339<\/td>R299<\/td>-R140<\/mark><\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
DStv Access<\/td>R139<\/td>R99<\/td>-R40<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Young people don’t want dishes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jacobs said that a second growth driver was the youth market which was more tech-savvy and comfortable with using online-only products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is a certain part of your customer base that simply will not buy your product if they have to put in physical hardware,” Jacobs said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thidly, Jacobs believes that new features and user experience improvements have helped make the offering more popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that MultiChoice has been working hard to align DStv Stream more closely with a pure on-demand streaming service experience. In the past year, new features included: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Watch from Start button<\/strong> \u2014 Restarts live programme from the beginning <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Network connection monitoring<\/strong> \u2014 Shows if there are potential Internet issues on Android TV and Apple tvOS app<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Cloud PVR storage<\/strong> \u2014 More space added for keeping download content<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Reverse EPG<\/strong> \u2014 Ability to rewind live TV up to 24 hours <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Cast and Crew <\/strong>\u2014 Shows details of actors and crew under movie synopsis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Jacobs said that although there have been major technical improvements, problems relating to connectivity and streaming quality were still a bit of a headache. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “We haven’t fully solved those because we have a number of intermediaries between ourselves and customers,” Jacobs said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “The problem is not always a DStv problem, but because we are the brand facing the customer, we have to solve those downstream problems.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    More technical enhancements in the works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Jacobs expected that DStv customers would naturally migrate to streaming-only packages in the coming years as online connectivity penetration improved, although some older users may still prefer satellite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Another factor that could boost DStv Stream’s popularity in the current financial year is the re-introduction of a second concurrent stream for big screens on Premium, Compact Plus, and Compact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    DStv restricted concurrent streams across all its packages to one device in 2022 to crack down on password-sharing and piracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Jacobs said that this change definitely created a lot of pain points with customers, and after enough time to assess the impact, DStv decided to reverse course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Sometimes we do things with the best intentions, but we are not too proud to say we might have erred on this,” Jacobs said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    According to MultiChoice financial chief Tim Jacobs, DStv Stream revenues surged due to cheaper prices, youth preferences, and an improved user experience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":598683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,88200,475,59587,62312],"class_list":["post-598605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-dstv-stream","tag-multichoice","tag-tim-jacobs","tag-video-streaming-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598605"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598825,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598605\/revisions\/598825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}