South Africa: DStv subscribers dwindle
January 7, 2026
By Chris Forrester
A fall of a few thousand in any market for a pay-TV organisation is a worry. Multiply that to a total of 2.8 million cancellations over the past two years and it shows that South Africa’s DStv, even under its new Canal+ owners, has a mountain to climb.
But the numbers are worrying. Back in March 2023 MultiChoice’s DStv had 17.2 million subscribers. The total is now 14.5 million and still falling.
There are plenty of perfectly fair reasons, not least economic factors such as high inflation rates and monetary devaluations in many of its key African markets. Kenya, for example, has lost 80 per cent losses due to currency-necessary price increases. Piracy is also a continued problem for the operator.
But the other key factor is the appearance of the various streaming suppliers, which many subscribers see as representing better value.
Even its core market, South Africa (48.5 per cent of the subscriber total), is having a tough time with unemployment at about 32 per cent, and growth prospects for the nation are slim.
MultiChoice/Canal+ is fighting back. It says it is continuing to observe multiple industry factors that also impacted pay-TV in South Africa, including an ongoing shift towards cheaper streaming services in line with global trends. The broadcaster says it is also focusing on a better quality subscriber, and improved content quality. It says its ARPU grew 4 per cent in 2025, showing that it is on the right track.
One major move might help: Canal+ has managed to hold onto 12 Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) channels that were supposed to disappear on January 1st for African subscribers. They are staying on DStv thanks to a last-minute deal struck on December 31st 2025. The channels are CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TLC, TNT Africa and Travel Channel.
The WBD deal also covers HBO content on M-Net and Showmax, which means subscribers will still get access to shows like The Last of Us, House of the Dragon, The White Lotus and the upcoming Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.