The End of Showmax Leaves Canal+ Trying to Connect Streaming Ambition With African Reality

The French media group Canal+ ended 2025 with 42.3 million subscribers worldwide, a figure that tells two different stories depending on where you look.

Strip out the 14.4 million subscribers attached to MultiChoice, and the Canal+ base rises to 28.0 million, up from 26.9 million the year before. The African business moves in the opposite direction. MultiChoice lost 0.5 million subscribers over the same period.

The arithmetic is simple. Growth sits outside Africa. The region that once anchored the pay television model now sits inside a larger global strategy run from Paris.

That reality hangs over every decision now unfolding around DStv, streaming, and content commissioning. The acquisition of MultiChoice closed in December 2025. The harder part begins after the paperwork ends.

A takeover is tidy on paper. Integrating two television ecosystems rarely is.

The Streaming Bet That Didn’t Survive

The first casualty is Showmax.

Launched in 2015, the service was designed as Africa’s answer to global streaming platforms. The pitch leaned heavily on local drama and sport-adjacent entertainment, aimed at a growing urban middle class. The ambition was clear. Reach audiences that traditional satellite television struggled to capture.

Yet the economics proved stubborn.

MultiChoice disclosed $138 million in losses tied to Showmax, while the company’s trading profit dropped 9%. The project also absorbed $309 million in equity investment, including funding linked to a partnership with NBCUniversal.

Subscriber growth offered a sliver of encouragement. Paying customers climbed 44% between 2024 and 2025. The problem sat elsewhere. Streaming margins depend on scale, deep catalogues, and relentless spending on programming. Global platforms already dominate that field.

Competition came from services backed by companies with larger balance sheets, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Local infrastructure also worked against the business. Broadband coverage remains uneven across much of the continent. Disposable income sits under pressure after several years of inflation.

Under those conditions, persistence carries a price.

Canal+ decided the bill was too high.

Showmax will shut down, though the company has not placed a public date on the final curtain. The replacement is straightforward in concept. Canal+ intends to introduce its own streaming platform across MultiChoice territories.

One brand. One technology stack. Fewer parallel businesses.

Streaming consolidation is a familiar pattern in media mergers. What stands out here is how quickly the curtain dropped on the existing platform.

Artificial Intelligence Enters the TV Interface

At the same time, Canal+ is rebuilding the technology inside its main application.

Beginning in June 2026, the Canal+ app will deploy a new search system powered by models from OpenAI. The goal is simple enough: move away from keyword search and toward conversational discovery.

A viewer could type a request that reads more like a sentence than a database query. Something about a crime series set in West Africa. Maybe a comedy that runs under 30 minutes per episode. The system interprets intent, then pulls from the catalogue.

Behind the interface sits another technical layer. Google Cloud signed a multi year contract to rebuild the way Canal+ indexes content. The company plans to classify programming using a multi modal database that draws from audio, video, and text.

It sounds like a technical footnote. In practice, it changes how streaming libraries behave.

Metadata has long been the invisible infrastructure of digital television. The more detailed the tagging system becomes, the easier it is to surface programming that viewers might otherwise miss. Recommendation engines become sharper. Catalogues feel larger without adding new titles.

Google will also provide access to Veo 3, a generative video system available to Canal+ production partners. The company stresses that the software will run inside a tightly controlled environment designed to protect rights and footage.

Artificial intelligence is creeping into every corner of the entertainment industry. Search and cataloguing are the least controversial entry points. Few viewers object to better recommendations.

The creative implications sit further down the road.

Paris Now Signs Off on African Productions

Another tension sits inside the production pipeline.

South African producers have complained that commissioning decisions for shows on M-Net, kykNET, and Mzansi Magic now pass through Paris for final approval.

Some contracts approved locally have stalled while waiting for sign off. Producers described a frustrating stretch earlier this year during the Joburg Film Festival, where several projects remained in limbo.

Centralized oversight is a familiar move after a takeover. The acquiring company wants visibility into budgets and editorial direction. Still, the African television industry developed around a degree of local autonomy. Writers, directors, and commissioning editors built long relationships across that ecosystem.

Suddenly routing approvals through headquarters inevitably slows the machine.

Canal+ executives insist the company will continue investing in local language programming. Afrikaans content on kykNET stays in place. Zulu programming on Mzansi Magic remains part of the schedule.

The reasoning is practical. Local programming drives subscriber loyalty. Imported drama alone rarely carries a pay television platform in markets where audiences expect their own languages and cultural references.

Still, production houses are watching closely. Central oversight changes the tone of negotiations. It also changes the clock.

The Price of DStv Comes Under the Microscope

The cost of DStv sits near the top of Canal+’s agenda in Africa.

Chief executive Maxime Saada has said the company wants to lower prices for Canal+ Africa customers. Details remain sparse, but the direction is clear. Satellite television faces relentless pressure from cheaper streaming services and informal viewing methods.

Lower pricing would likely require simpler packages and tighter control over programming budgets. Canal+ has already hinted that some channels may disappear as the company reviews the lineup.

The fate of M Net remains uncertain, particularly after the loss of several high profile shows linked to Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO licensing deals.

Saada offered only one enthusiastic endorsement during a recent briefing.

The group intends to keep investing in SuperSport.

Sport rights remain the backbone of subscription television. Few viewers cancel a service during a football season they care about.

A Market Once Wary of Adult Channels

An unexpected topic surfaced during the same round of interviews.

Canal+ executives acknowledged that adult entertainment channels could eventually appear on South African television packages. The company already carries such programming in other territories.

Local reaction may prove complicated.

MultiChoice conducted a subscriber survey in 2010 while studying the possibility of introducing an adult channel. Public backlash followed. More than 13,000 complaints arrived during a campaign opposing the idea. Civil society groups applied additional pressure.

The company stepped back.

The debate never fully disappeared. Pay television operators worldwide earn strong margins from premium adult packages. At the same time, cultural attitudes vary sharply from market to market.

Canal+ says it will comply with national regulation and social sensitivities.

That phrase leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

A French Media Group Prepares for a Johannesburg Listing

Another piece of the strategy sits on the financial side.

Canal+ plans to list shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange before September 2026, becoming the first French media company to trade there. The group already maintains its primary listing on the London Stock Exchange.

The secondary listing forms part of the commitments made to the Competition Commission of South Africa when regulators reviewed the MultiChoice acquisition.

MultiChoice itself disappeared from the market in December 2025, closing a chapter that began when the company spun out of Naspers in 2019 with an opening share price of R95.

Investors will soon trade shares in the new owner instead.

Financially, the message is that Africa remains central to the Canal+ expansion plan. Operationally, the story is more complicated.

The company is consolidating platforms, rewriting technology systems, and tightening oversight of programming budgets. The decisions may make sense inside a global balance sheet. Their effects will play out inside living rooms and production studios scattered across the continent.

Television empires rarely transform overnight. They evolve through dozens of smaller adjustments that accumulate over time.

In Africa, Canal+ has started that process. The end point remains uncertain, though the direction of travel is easier to see now than it was a year ago.

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