Canal+ unveils big plan to stem DStv’s decline

Canal+ will pump €100-million (R1.9-billion) into a “boost plan” to restart subscriber growth at MultiChoice, even as Africa’s largest pay-TV operator continues to bleed customers and revenue under its new French parent.

The investment, announced alongside Canal+’s first full-year results since completing the MultiChoice acquisition, comes as the South African-headquartered business saw its subscriber base shrink from 14.9 million to 14.4 million over the 12 months to 31 December 2025. Revenue fell 6% to €2.4-billion and adjusted earnings before interest and tax declined 14% to €159-million (excluding exceptional items and the positive impact of purchase price allocation).

Canal+ acknowledged the scale of the challenge, saying 2025 had been “another challenging year” for MultiChoice, driven by declining subscriber numbers and a cost base that had “become too high”.

The company blamed MultiChoice’s deterioration on a combination of macroeconomic headwinds – including currency devaluation in Nigeria and persistent power cuts – and what it described as the “expensive failure” of Showmax, which Canal+ recently announced it would shut down.

Canal+ said MultiChoice had tried to arrest the decline through short-term measures such as price increases and cutting subscriber acquisition subsidies, but these had “a negative impact on the subscriber base, worsening the original profitability issues”.

The €100-million investment plan is structured around four pillars:

• Assembling what Canal+ calls the “best content on the African continent” by combining local productions with global partnerships;
• Simplifying and repricing commercial offers;
• Building what it describes as a “powerful acquisition engine” by lowering entry costs through equipment subsidies and expanding distribution; and
• Driving operational efficiency at scale.

As part of the push, Canal+ plans to recruit more than a thousand salespeople across MultiChoice’s markets in Africa, shifting the business towards what it calls a “sales-focused model”.

But the investment comes alongside significant cost-cutting. Canal+ said it will initiate a voluntary severance plan at MultiChoice across support functions and launch a restructuring programme at Irdeto, MultiChoice’s technology and cybersecurity subsidiary.

Accelerated synergies

The company said these changes are “consistent with the commitments Canal+ made during the acquisition of MultiChoice” and align with its strategy to “streamline certain functions while investing more in activities that directly support the group’s growth”.

Canal+ said it has accelerated the delivery of its synergy plan, now expecting to achieve more than €250-million in adjusted Ebit (earnings before interest and tax) savings in 2026 – up sharply from the €150-million it had previously guided.

Read: MultiChoice pulls the plug on Showmax

Key factors driving the acceleration include the Showmax shutdown, structural cost reductions at MultiChoice, the rationalisation of company-owned property and the pooling of resources related to a planned listing of Canal+ on the JSE.

The cost of achieving these accelerated synergies is expected to rise to between €70-million and €100-million.

For 2026, Canal+ expects MultiChoice’s adjusted Ebit to inch up to around €170-million – an €11-million improvement on 2025 – with the positive effects of synergies and the boost plan largely offset by a further €140-million drag from declining revenue and cost inflation.

The company said it still expects a “modest decrease” in MultiChoice subscribers in 2026 but a slower rate of revenue decline.

Read: MultiChoice scraps annual DStv price hike

Canal+ took effective control of MultiChoice on 20 September 2025 and completed the squeeze-out of remaining shareholders the following month. MultiChoice shares were delisted from the JSE on 10 December 2025. Canal+ has confirmed it intends to complete its secondary listing on the JSE before end-June 2026.  — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media