Canal+ has signalled its willingness to invest in getting more customers back on to DStv, announcing all Fifa World Cup games will be available on entry-level packages.
Since taking control of the DStv operator, Canal+ has been configuring how the combination of the French broadcaster’s Africa unit and MultiChoice will operate in the future.
Much of the effort has been focused on cutting costs, shutting down loss-making units, renegotiating contracts with suppliers and reducing headcount.
The group has said it is willing to spend on customer acquisition, setting aside close to R2bn for that purpose.
The upcoming World Cup showcase in Canada, Mexico and the US shows how sport, DStv’s long-established drawcard, is again being used to draw in customers.
Last week, DStv’s traditional cash cow, SuperSport, said all 104 World Cup football games would be available to all its subscribers for the first time, including its cheapest option, DStv Access.
In the past, such an offering was positioned as premium and only available to the platform’s higher-tier packages.
DStv Access starts at R99 a month.
During a press conference on Friday, Rendani Ramovha, Canal+ director of content for English and Portuguese-speaking Africa, said DStv Access was the package that has “the most eyeballs”.
“It’s the first time we’ll be doing this as MultiChoice, now a Canal+ company.”
He said the move was “testament to the mandate we have to make sure we reach as many people with the content slate we have”.
While cost-cutting has been a major theme around the Canal+ takeover of MultiChoice, Ramovha said there was a big push to invest in content and improve their offering, thus adding to the value of the platform.
“As much as there’s a discussion about cost-cutting, we also need to frame it differently, calling out what we do have and the investment that goes into making sure that what you see today on screen on SuperSport remains what it is and for the quality and the standard to be world-class.
“We need to have parity in not only associating the negative with the parent company but also calling out the willingness for SuperSport to get approval to send three crews on site in Mexico, Canada and the US. We’ve never done that. In Qatar, we had a smaller group.”
“We’ve got creators going. We are in discussions with Fifa about potentially having some of our production teams shadowing. As Africa, through the parent company, we have plugged into a global ecosystem.”
This comes a few weeks after Business Day reported MultiChoice would spend almost R21bn on local content as part of its commitment to South Africa’s film and TV ecosystem after the Canal+ transaction.
Spending on sport is included in the investment.
A major development resulting from Canal+’s ongoing streamlining process came last month when MultiChoice announced it will soon shut down its Showmax on-demand video streaming service as part of the group’s effort to rein in costs and cut loss-making units, having spent more than R5bn on the project.
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