Canal+ Deems Showmax Unsuccessful, Cuts Funding After MultiChoice Buy

A rather candid assessment of its new African acquisition sees French media giant Groupe Canal+ declaring MultiChoice-owned streaming platform Showmax commercially unsuccessful while planning to significantly cut investment, pivoting a multi-billion-dollar deal toward cost savings rather than digital growth.

The move follows Canal+ gaining control of the MultiChoice Group in a USD 3 B deal finalised in September 2025. Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada announced as the group outlined a plan to extract over USD 479 M in annual cost synergies from the combined company by 2030.

“Showmax is not a commercial success. It’s quite obvious,” Saada said bluntly during a recent presentation. “We are in a position to reduce those investments… I won’t say how much, but it is significant”. Chief Financial Officer Amandine Ferré described Showmax’s ongoing losses as “not acceptable for us”.

The decision represents a swift reversal of MultiChoice’s ambitious multi-year strategy to transform the continent’s pay-TV leader into a streaming powerhouse. MultiChoice had relaunched Showmax with a major technology and content overhaul in 2024, projecting it could generate USD 1 B in revenue within five years.

However, the platform’s financial reality has proven dire. For the 2025 financial year, Showmax recorded a trading loss of ZAR 4.9 B (approximately USD 308 M), an 88% worsening from the previous year. Despite a 44% year-on-year increase in paying subscribers, the platform’s revenue declined, dragged down by what the company described as “a step-change in content costs and increased platform costs”.

Analysts say Canal+’s primary motivation for the MultiChoice acquisition was always scale and cost savings in its core pay-TV business across Africa, not to salvage a standalone streaming contender.

“We are in a position to reduce those investments. They are included in the synergies,” Saada said, explicitly linking the Showmax cuts to the broader USD 479 M annual savings target. The synergy plan focuses on consolidating spending on content, technology infrastructure like satellite and set-top boxes, and refinancing MultiChoice’s debt.

Canal+ executives have stressed they will proceed cautiously to avoid losing “potentially valuable subscribers,” but the strategic shift is evident.

Showmax’s struggles occur against a backdrop of severe challenges for its parent company. MultiChoice lost 2.8 million linear TV subscribers over the past two years, with its active customer base falling to 14.5 million. The group blamed a “severely stretched consumer environment,” foreign exchange volatility, intense competition from global streamers, and rampant piracy for its declining revenue and profit.

Canal+ now faces the task of stabilising the broader MultiChoice business while managing Showmax’s substantial losses. The French group has committed to not cutting South African staff for three years, indicating that savings will come from operational areas, not mass layoffs.

The strategic retreat from heavy streaming investment has been forced by the harsh economics of competing in Africa’s video market, where low broadband penetration, complex payment collection, and price-sensitive consumers create formidable barriers.

For now, Canal+ appears to be betting that a leaner, more integrated pay-TV operation with a scaled-back streaming component offers a surer path to profitability than an all-out battle with global giants for Africa’s streaming future.