MultiChoice Group-owned video streaming platform Showmax will offer live sports to all customers in South Africa, effective immediately, it said on Friday.
The service is moving from a testing phase with a randomly selected group of customers to being available to all Showmax users, a spokesman said.
The price of Showmax stays the same — R99/month.
“We’re going to trial a bunch of different sport content while keeping Showmax at the R99 price point, and see how our customers interact with the service,” said MultiChoice Connected Video CEO Niclas Ekdahl.
The content will consist of both magazine shows and highlights clips as well as live-streamed games.
It includes live games from Cricket World Cup and SuperSport Rugby Challenge matches.
The new sport section features extended highlights from major sports events, and the following magazine shows, which will be available both live and to catch up later: What a Weekend, Showcase, Home, The Final Whistle, Phaka, Inside Edge, In Touch, The Dan Nicholl Show, #borntorugby and FirstXV.
‘A big deal’
“Adding sport to Showmax is something fundamentally new for us and it’s a big deal. We’re preparing for a future when uncapped data is affordable to all in Africa and video on demand becomes the norm,” Ekdahl said.
“We’ve been delivering TV series and movies for almost four years and continue to see strong growth in usage. Sport is the obvious next target and the only way to do that properly is to be able to stream it live.”
The new sport section is available on most Showmax apps and platforms except for Apple TV, Xbox and PlayStation, and some smart TVs. Support will be added for these in the coming months, MultiChoice said. The sport content is currently available only in South Africa. — (c) 2019 NewsCentral Media
