DStv's downfall: Lessons from a Pay-TV giant
Opinion
The days when DStv could hold the country hostage with a remote and a decoder are over.
Image: File / Independent Newspapers
DStv has spent decades flexing its power as Africa’s Pay-TV giant, but power without gratitude always breeds downfall. While loyal subscribers endured incessant price hikes, endlessly recycled programming, and weak excuses, MultiChoice treated its customers like walking invoices, not the people keeping their lights on.
It now seems a little too late to realise that those customers are actual human beings, with choices, voices, and standards.
Now, with a mass channel collapse looming in January 2026, the irony is almost too perfect to ignore. This isn’t just a crisis; it’s the long-awaited consequence of a company that failed to value its customers, and maybe, just maybe, they’re finally getting exactly what they deserve.
CNN, Discovery, Cartoon Network, MTV Base, BET Africa, TLC, HGTV, Food Network, and so much more might soon be gone from DStv. These aren’t just “channels”, they’re the news we rely on, the music and culture that define a generation, the cartoons that have shaped South African children’s imaginations since the early 2000s.
MultiChoice may be embroiled in a heated back-and-forth with Warner Bros. Discovery over the retention of these programmes, but they fail to understand what Chinese businessman Jack Ma utters with conviction: “Success and profitability are outcomes of focusing on customers… not objectives.”
What’s happening to DStv is an age-old story of arrogant monopolies. What’s worse is that for years now, our national landscape has drastically transformed as a result of technological innovations. Not only is most content readily available on various streaming sites, but there are a plethora of platforms that provide premium TV shows at a fraction of the cost of DStv.
From Netflix, YouTube Premium, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, to Showmax itself (the sheer irony of that), viewers have been spoiled for choice. In fact, the total price of all of these services is R618 per month, compared to DStv’s stupefying R979 monthly rate.
What’s worse is that DStv has been haemorrhaging viewers for over a year now. Canal+, which owns MultiChoice, recently reported that the platform lost 1.2 million subscribers as of March 2025. This is a stark indicator that streaming alternatives are growing cheaper, more flexible, and more appealing; and MultiChoice’s dominance is slipping faster than its executives seem willing to appreciate.
One thing is clear: Those days when DStv could hold the country hostage with a remote and a decoder are over. They need to get with the programme and understand that it’s not 2005 anymore — the world of entertainment is literally at our fingertips.
These are the advantages of the digital age. More than half of the entire nation faces abject poverty, and the lack of affordable digital access only exacerbates this problem. Although so many are still excluded from critical opportunities for education, skills development, and digital income sources via online platforms, editing apps and social media have made it possible for countless under-resourced creatives to film and distribute content without big studios or gatekeepers — turning smartphones and laptops into full production studios.
Talent and hustle now matter more than connections or capital — the internet lets creators monetise skills and build careers from scratch. This not only multiplies the amount of entertainment content available to us, but it also encourages various platforms to collaborate and invest in South African creative industries, giving us locals more access to entertainment across the globe.
In fact, South Africa enjoys the lion’s share of Netflix’s $175 million regional allocation, and has poured hundreds of millions into our creative industry in the past three years alone.
Sure, DStv still has its role — especially for people in rural areas who rely on it for sports, news, and shows. It’s certainly been pivotal to the proliferation of local programming such as Mzansi Magic, BET Africa, and Trace Ngoma.
But let’s be real, MultiChoice has had every opportunity to innovate and adapt. Yet time and again, they chose complacency. In the last 10-15 years, they have offered the bare minimum in terms of personally tailored TV channel packages, accessibility to recordings beyond the TV screen, issues with multi-device streaming, and so much more.
DStv’s biggest issue is clear: relevance. People want flexibility, variety, and value. MultiChoice’s old-school approach has very clearly become irrelevant in a world where the audience calls the shots.
If anything, this whole ordeal must serve as a reminder to the board members, the distribution managers, and all those in the entertainment business that you can’t buy loyalty, and you certainly can’t recycle mediocrity forever. Ignoring the market isn’t just a bad strategy; it is a fast-track to irrelevance.
DStv’s issues aren’t minor glitches; they’re systemic failures. For years, MultiChoice blatantly ignored the market, the people who pay them. They are so typically focused on the “bottom line”. Now, with a vast landscape of options everywhere and audiences in more control than ever, MultiChoice must now confront the consequences of its arrogance.
Unsurprising as it may be, DStv has brought this on itself. Come January, the real question won’t be “if” viewers will leave, but “how fast”. Without bold, immediate change, DStv’s collapse isn’t unlikely; it’s imminent. And truth be told, it may already be too late.
* Tswelopele Makoe is a gender and social justice activist and editor at Global South Media Network. She is a researcher, columnist, and an Andrew W Mellon scholar at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.