{"id":611768,"date":"2025-09-23T07:03:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T05:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=611768"},"modified":"2025-09-23T07:17:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T05:17:40","slug":"the-new-man-running-dstv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/611768-the-new-man-running-dstv.html","title":{"rendered":"The new man running DStv"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Mignot was recently announced as CEO of Canal+ Africa, which has assumed control over MultiChoice Group after clearing all regulatory conditions for its takeover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Frenchman is a seasoned media and telecoms executive and has notched significant achievements leading Canal+ in its predominantly Francophone African markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His new position comes with a major challenge off the bat: arrest MultiChoice’s subscriber exodus and bring back revenue growth amid increased competition from video streaming services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mignot was born in 1973 and raised in Mennecy, a small town in Essonne, a department in the southern part of the \u00cele-de-France region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with Podcast African Business Makers<\/a>, he describes his hometown as being on the edge between a “quite unpleasant” suburb and the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he said his childhood was happy thanks to great parents, he felt a bit disconnected from his classmates as he stood out for his height and academic achievements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mignot says he did not have any explicit dreams of future achievements but had a strong will to “live his own life” with some measure of control over what he could do with his time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The portion of humanity that has had a life they more or less controlled, where they could say ‘at least I had a degree of freedom’ or ‘for a significant part of my life, I could do what I want’ is tiny. It’s terrifying,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that he and his two sisters grew up in an environment that exposed them to musical, literary, and theatrical culture, as well as the great outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I come from a family of climbers, so every Sunday we were in the forest, every vacation we were on cliffs or in the mountains,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they were relatively well-off, he was taught to respect that this was not a given and that hardships may not be far off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a father “literally” born under a helmet in Normandy during the World War II D-Day landings, and a mother growing up in a post-war Paris living on ration tickets, it was easy to assume this perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Career history and guiding principles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
David Mignot, Canal+ Africa CEO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mignot considers it an immense privilege to have been born in France and to be a French citizen. “You realise it when you go on an expatriation assignment, when you travel all over the world,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began forming a connection with Africa while in high school, where many African pupils attended class with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“After it was really a professional chance, quite frankly, that led me to become interested first in the Arab part of Africa, and then in the continental part,” he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After completing what is effectively the equivalent of a BCom Economics Honours Degree at the Paris Dauphine University, he joined the military service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, he was appointed to the consulting firm Bossard Consultants. His first job was helping TPS launch its own direct-to-home pay-TV platform to compete with Canal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, he founded and led Internet and satellite television operator Parabole R\u00e9union, where he remained until 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thereafter, he was appointed deputy CEO at Groupe Outremer Telecom, a French telecommunications provider operating in the country’s foreign territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, he was appointed as Canal+ director of African operations, and two years later, Canal+ Group general manager for Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his tenure, the company grew from 300 employees to around 2,000. Among his recent big focuses has been improving Canal+’s live sports coverage, a key strength of MultiChoice’s SuperSport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He highlighted four cardinal values guiding decision-making in his personal life and professional career:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Does a decision bring you closer \u2014 even with detours \u2014 to your personal or professional ambitions?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Is there a form of courage involved in the decision? Is it not being made because you are comfortable rather than right? <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Is there integrity in the decision? Are you product of it and can you own it?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Is there vertical and horizontal alignment between the various teams and ecosystem?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Furthermore, Mignot strongly believes that sharing bad practices across teams is just as important as sharing best practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While he has yet to detail his plans for MultiChoice, Mignot previously said he believes a pan-African strategy combining Canal+ and MultiChoice’s regional strengths could create a more formidable rival to other global streaming services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Mignot may be proud of his French identity, but he is no stranger to African markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":611806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[101563,21383,101558,85,66933,475],"class_list":["post-611768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-canal-2","tag-canal","tag-david-mignot","tag-dstv","tag-groupe-canal","tag-multichoice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611768"}],"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=611768"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611808,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611768\/revisions\/611808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}