[Transcript] #35: MultiChoice - How the South African Pay TV pioneer became the largest entertainment provider across Africa
Recorded Aug 15 2021
Hello! Bankole here:
Multichoice has expanded beyond satellite TV into streaming, betting, and even financial services. On the surface, the company should be thriving. It's the largest pay-TV provider in Africa and holds exclusive rights to highly sought after content like the English Premier League. The African payTV market is expanding - subscribers are expected to increase 38% in 5 years as more customers watch local content, Multichoice's specialty.
However, the full picture is more complex. The expensive entry into betting has yet to pay off. While Africa’s payTV subscriber numbers are expected to rise, revenues will grow more slowly due to competitive pricing pressure. Competitor and shareholder Canal+ is ramping up local content efforts and takeover rumours will not go away. Multichoice's Showmax streaming service faces fierce competition from Netflix and Amazon Prime's cash and rapid expansion.
This was an interesting episode to research and record. Listen here and find the transcript (for paid subscribers) below.
Have a great week,
Bankole.
[00:00:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Welcome to Afrobility, a conversation about African business and technology. Today, we're going to talk about MultiChoice, the largest video entertainment provider in Sub Saharan Africa. We'll explore the MultiChoice story across five different areas. One, African video entertainment market context. Two, MultiChoice's launch and growth over time. Three, MultiChoice's business and monetization strategy. Fourth, its competitive positioning, primary emerging business lines. And then we'll end with our overall outlook. This episode was recorded on August 15, 2021. Bankus, Bankus Becker, how goes it? I like it.
[00:00:33] Bankole Makanju: So we are doing episode appropriate naming
[00:01:47] Olumide Ogunsanwo: We're not that, please. We're not the FinTech podcast, general Tech podcast. So we're doing Multichoice. So what is Multichoice?
[00:01:52] Bankole Makanju: I don't think people think about Multichoice in. The way you think about a tech company, but it's a South African company that operates pay TV. Probably the biggest, the most apt Western analogy would be something like Comcast is what multi choice is. So satellite
[00:02:06] Olumide Ogunsanwo: TV service. I thought they were like Netflix.