MultiChoice has announced a new partnership with Comcast, and the deal will see the owner of NBC Universal and Sky take a 30% stake in its streaming platform Showmax.
As the owner of DStv, MultiChoice said a new version of Showmax with US technology and a plethora of new content will be launched very soon.
MultiChoice will own 70% of Showmax, with an extensive pipeline of international content from NBC Universal and Sky to be complemented by third-party content from HBO, Warner Brothers International, and Sony, along with live English Premier League football.
Dubbed the “new” Showmax, it will continue to offer local content from MultiChoice’s Mzansi Magic, Africa Magic, and Maisha Magic.
MultiChoice said that Comcast’s technology, particularly NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform – which has over 20 million subscribers in the US – will be used, which would mean the new Showmax group would be “exceptionally well placed to scale rapidly and become the leading platform in Africa”.
“Due to competitive sensitivities, specifics about the unique service offering, how existing subscribers can seamlessly migrate to the new service, and detailed pricing will be announced closer to the launch date,” it said.
Meanwhile, media reports reveal that the transaction, still subject to certain conditions, is expected to be concluded in April.
“The global video media landscape has changed rapidly in recent years, led by broadband adoption and the growth of direct-to-consumer streaming platforms,” it said per News24.
“Although Africa has lagged somewhat, it is now approaching an inflection point in terms of broadband connectivity and affordability.”
Having launched Showmax in 2015, MultiChoice doesn’t provide a detailed breakdown of subscriber numbers for the service in its reports.
However, the report coming to BusinessTech Africa is that MultiChoice had 21 million subscribers at the end of September, 12.19 million of which were in Africa.
Showmax is a paid service available as a standalone product or as a value-added service to DStv Premium subscribers and at a 50% discount to customers on certain lower-tier DStv packages.
Shares in MultiChoice, which is valued at over R62 billion on the JSE, had slight changes on Thursday morning, having risen by just over 10% over the past year.
