MultiChoice is pushing for streaming dominance in Africa, announcing on Thursday it had entered into an agreement with media giants NBCUniversal from the US and the UK’s Sky, to create a new Showmax service.
The former Naspers-owned group appears to be feeling the pressure from lower-priced streaming products being offered in SA by Amazon, Netflix and Disney.
The number of streaming services that have entered the SA market has grown, including US players Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as Hong Kong’s Viu, which has differentiated itself through local content. MultiChoice has also invested heavily in the space, and is home to three services — DStv, Showmax and Showmax Pro.
The DStv operator is taking this investment further, saying a new Showmax group will be 70% owned by MultiChoice and 30% by NBCUniversal, and powered by its Peacock technology. This will “build on Showmax’s success to date and strive to create the leading streaming service in Africa”, MultiChoice said.
“MultiChoice believes the agreement with the Comcast group provides an opportunity to capture the best of both partners’ capabilities and competitive advantages to deliver a differentiated SVOD [subscription video-on-demand] service, that offers world-class, affordable products which can compete with the best in the world,” MultiChoice told investors.
“By using Comcast’s global, scalable technology — in particular NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform that already has more than 20-million paid subscribers in the US — and their significant international content portfolio, the new Showmax Group will be exceptionally well placed to scale rapidly to ... the leading platform in Africa.”
The partnership provides the Comcast group with an opportunity to push the global reach of its content and streaming technology in one of the fastest- growing video markets globally.
Streaming has brought about many changes to the world of broadcast and entertainment.
Previously, studios would create content, which would be bought by broadcasters such as MultiChoice and then distributed to customers. Now studios such as Disney and HBO are coming up with their own apps and going straight to consumers. Now MultiChoice, which dominates the local pay-TV market with more than 9-million customers, faces even more competition from some of the most powerful Hollywood players.
DStv has already launched the Explora Ultra decoder, which has YouTube, YouTube Kids, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Showmax and DStv Now. MultiChoice refers to this as its “super aggregator strategy”.
The company is looking to do for online streaming what it has done for local broadcast television with DStv — aggregate content in one place.
News of the partnership comes a day after Comcast appointed Anand Kini as executive vice-president, corporate strategy in addition to his position as CFO of NBCUniversal.
“In this role, Anand will work across Comcast, NBCUniversal, and Sky to help drive the company’s global growth strategy,” the company said.
According to data from Statista, revenue from video streaming in SA is projected to reach $220.2m in 2023 and the number of users are expected to climb to 9.8-million by 2027.
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