MultiChoice loses 100,000 subs to Netflix
July 6, 2018
By Chris Forrester
MultiChoice has admitted that it has lost some 100,000 subscribers to its DStv Premium service. The South Africa-based pay-TV operator says it has been hit hard by the arrival of Netflix into some of its markets.
Few doubt that MultiChoice (and DStv) control the lion’s share of the pay-TV market helped by consumers appreciating its comprehensive SuperSport bundles of channels.
Multichoice South Africa CEO Calvo Mawela has already complained about Netflix’s financial privileges in that it does not have to pay for a broadcasting licence.
Mawela says that MultiChoice’s response is to fight back with its own streaming service, and has already launched DStv Now. Part of the problem has been in obtaining the streaming rights for all of its broadcast content, but Mawela now says that by the end of this year it will have achieved streaming rights for all of the channels and content carried on the broadcast service.
DStv Now was initially only available to Premium (and Compact/Compact+) subscribers. In January the option was available to all subscribers.