Canal+ Lists In South Africa With Bold Plan To Reverse DStv Decline

Canal+ began trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Wednesday in a secondary listing that fulfils a key regulatory pledge tied to its USD 3.2 B acquisition of MultiChoice, as the French media group doubles down on live sports rights to reverse steep subscriber losses at Africa’s largest pay-TV operator.

The listing, the first ever by a French company on the JSE, comes eight months after Canal+ took full control of MultiChoice, which has shed nearly three million linear subscribers over the past two financial years across its DStv and GOtv platforms. The stock opened at 58.50 rand, above its reference price based on London-traded shares, before settling.

While the listing hands South African investors rand-denominated exposure to a combined entity serving 42 million subscribers across 70 countries, the operational challenge facing the group is quite tasking.

MultiChoice ended 2025 with 14.4 million subscribers, down from 14.9 million a year earlier, with revenue sliding 6% to EUR 2.4 B. In South Africa alone, DStv shed 589,000 subscribers in the 2025 financial year, an 8% decline across every pricing tier from premium to mass-market.

Sports as a shield

Canal+ has moved decisively to lock in premium rights across multiple disciplines in a bid to stem churn. On Wednesday, the same day as the JSE listing, the group extended its Premier Soccer League broadcast rights through SuperSport across sub-Saharan Africa. That followed a May renewal of its multi-year domestic rugby rights with the South African Rugby Union, covering all Springbok matches.

SuperSport will also broadcast all 104 matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup across 27 African nations, a tournament featuring a record 10 African teams.

“The renewal of the domestic broadcast agreement is not just the strengthening of our long-standing partnership,” said Rendani Ramovha, Canal+ director for sports content in English and Portuguese-speaking Africa, following the rugby deal. “It is a victory for DStv viewers and subscribers”.

Canal+ Africa CEO David Mignot said the rugby extension “reaffirms our long-term commitment to local sport,” while the group has also committed EUR 100 M to a turnaround plan that includes hiring more than 1,000 salespeople across African markets and lowering subscriber entry costs.

Content consolidation

The Paris-based group has simultaneously moved to rationalise MultiChoice’s streaming bets, shuttering the loss-making Showmax platform in March after years of heavy investment failed to deliver scale.

By centralising sports rights through SuperSport while cutting standalone streaming overhead, Canal+ is betting that live events, which are less vulnerable to cord-cutting than general entertainment, can anchor a broader content proposition that includes thousands of hours of local African productions.

Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada described the dual London-Johannesburg listing as reinforcing the group’s “ambition to be a bridge between Europe and Africa”. But question marks linger over whether a renewed focus on sports and local content can reverse years of subscriber erosion in a market where the shift to streaming appears structural.