Video may not have killed the radio star – but the world’s most loved form of entertainment’s impact on traditional TV is encouraging a stronger focus on content quality, technology and the user experience.
Video is one of the most loved forms of entertainment in the world – and digi-tech advances have not only brought video entertainment into our homes, it’s now instantly accessible to us anywhere, anytime.
Over the last decade, the entire media and entertainment industry has fragmented, with consumers now overwhelmed by the volume of choices in what, how, when, and where to watch what they want. It’s never been easier and faster to do so; whether live, linear or on demand.
Spoilt for choice
With satellite, streaming and social media all providing video entertainment options, different platforms work for different market segments. Regions and income groups constrained by the availability of internet access, data costs and the quality of signal distribution rely heavily on satellite TV.
At the same time, streaming video is expanding its reach, especially in developed markets. As barriers to internet access decrease, streaming will draw bigger audiences – in line with first world trends – and will become the future of our industry globally in the medium to long term.
Adding another dimension to the video entertainment sector is how enthusiastically younger viewers have embraced short form video on social media platforms. There is a multiplicity of video entertainment available now and in this light, it is understandable why consumers are often confused as to what the best video service combination is for their wallet.
Multi-platform offerings
In South Africa, satellite TV is still Multichoice’s financial engine, servicing customers in urban, semi-urban and remote rural areas where there is limited or no internet connectivity, or data costs remain prohibitive – and most of our customers still watch our content using a decoder, encrypted smartcard and satellite dish.
Acutely aware of the inevitable shift to streaming, we serve the streaming market through DStv Stream and Showmax, with both expanding their reach and subscriber base over the last few years. We’ve recently rolled out several service enhancements for DStv Stream, including making a second free stream available to Premium, Compact Plus and Compact subscribers, at no extra cost from 1 April 2025.
We’ve done this to enhance viewing flexibility for customers, so that families can enjoy different content simultaneously, including on smart TVs, while sports fans can watch multiple games at once.
Other recent updates on DStv Stream include:
- Cloud PVR functionality
- Letting customers pause and rewind up to 24 hours of content without needing a decoder, an improved ‘Watch from Start’ feature
- Cast and crew functionality for easier search capability.
Another key aspect of our streaming operations is to foster key data partnerships with leading mobile operators to make our products more easily and widely available.
Showmax launched a new UI as part of its transition to the Peacock platform, and numerous localised features such as data saving modes and local language subtitling. Showmax is the first streaming platform in Africa now available in Kiswahili, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with over 230 million speakers.
Sporting acumen
As a business, we’ve always been very focused on ensuring that our content offers real value to our customers. Live sport remains a key viewership driver among South African audiences, who are sport mad.
SuperSport continues to meet this demand for great sporting action and today offers more sport content than any other broadcaster in the world, covering athletics, boxing, cricket, cycling, football, golf, gymnastics, motorsport, tennis, rugby, swimming, wrestling and more.
Among the big drawcards are the local PSL, SA rugby and cricket, English Premier League, the UEFA Champions League, Formula 1 racing, Grand Slam tennis, all golf majors and all the major events such as World Cups and the Olympics.
Local sport is vital for viewership and continues to bring our country together through epic sporting moments – who can forget the goosebumps of the Boks going back-to-back in 2023?
In February, the Soweto Derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs became the most-watched fixture ever on SuperSport. According to Nielsen Sports SA, about 3.29 million South African viewers tuned in, marking a 28% increase in viewership in comparison to the previous year.
SuperSport had 24 cameras in operation on the day, including four robotic in-commentary cameras, two RF (4K/UHD) wireless and ultra slow-motion cameras, a cinematic camera (cellular bonded wireless solution) and a drone with augmented reality graphics.
We brought fans every minute, and arguably every angle, live. We’re also very proud of our SuperSport Schools channel that’s dedicated to young up-and-coming stars, which has more than 1.1-million users on the SuperSport Schools app.
We have recently extended distribution even further, to DStv EasyView, DStv Stream Free as well as the SABC+ platform.
Entertainment for Africa
Animation, comedy, drama, documentary, kids, reality, romance, telenovela, awards shows, game shows, talk shows and more – DStv and Showmax have a huge content slate of both standout local titles and international hits.
Homegrown content remains highly attractive to our customers and with over 84 000 hours of co-produced and commissioned titles across 45 languages, including over 6 500 hours added last year, we remain the largest producer of original content in Africa.
African storytelling continues to deliver outstanding viewership with our investment into local content also reflected in the global success of our productions.
Notably: Reyka (The Cane Field Killings) was sold to over 150 territories, including BritBox North America, CANAL+, Channel 4 in the UK, HBO LatAm and Sky Italia.
White Lies was screened on Channel 4 (UK), SundanceNOW (North America) and Stan (Australia). Meanwhile Die Brug (2024), Two Sides (2023), Reyka (2022), The River (2019), and Is’thunzi (2017 and 2018) have all received Emmy nominations.
We’ve also actively co-produced with global giants like Acorn TV (Recipes for Love and Murder), BBC (Devil’s Peak) and HBO (Trackers).
At home, we’ve won multiple SAFTAs (South African Film and Television Awards) and AMVCAs (Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards), recognising excellence in storytelling and production quality – and African Originals represented 8 out of the top 10 Showmax titles since it relaunched in February 2024.
Shaka Ilembe season 2 in June
Our local content team continues to create flagship titles like Shaka Ilembe, one of the hits that drove appointment viewing as audiences eagerly tuned in weekly for brand-new episodes, and we are tremendously excited by the launch of season 2 in June 2025, which will be the group’s biggest ever local production.
Internationally, we continue to hold strong relationships with the world’s biggest content suppliers, with channels and programming from A&E Networks, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Disney, Discovery Networks, Lionsgate, Paramount, Viacom, Warner and many more.
We intend to explore new content formats and partnerships to ensure superb viewing across our platforms.
AI-assisted customer-centricity
Our customers are the foundation of our business, so we remain on the pulse of their needs. With our content portfolio continuously expanding, helping them navigate the features of our platforms is a priority.
We’re using AI-powered recommendations to help make content discovery easier, by analysing their viewing habits and preferences.
We also use AI to enhance live TV recommendations by identifying content groups based on connected and unconnected DStv decoder and streaming data.
AI also improves content descriptions and search results, making it easier to find what you want to watch. So, if a movie’s synopsis doesn’t explicitly mention a superhero, AI can infer and update the metadata to improve discoverability.
We are also heavily focused on the UX and UI of both our satellite and streaming products – we want customers to understand our brand identities and what is available to them fast, and to have clear signposting of how content is clustered.
Our app suite is fundamental, especially the DStv app that allows customers to control their accounts and enjoy a rapidly increasing level of rewards through the DStv Rewards programme. Customers can pick the products that best suit them, have mobility across products as they need it and manage settings like parental control; resolve error messages, pay for services and more.
30 Years and counting
In DStv’s 30th year, we’re highly excited about what our business has accomplished and where we’re heading. We remain critically focused on customer service across our platforms, with multiple touchpoints for customer support. Our teams are constantly upskilled, and we will continue to empower them to use the latest technology to create better viewing and engagement experiences for our customers.
We will keep evolving our content pipelines so that our customers have access to the best live sport, excellent local entertainment, and outstanding international titles available.
Across the DStv and Showmax ecosystems we will continue to innovate and embrace technologies as they emerge. Our promise to customers is that we will continue to build on our legacy as Africa’s leading pay-TV operator.
Byron du Plessis is CEO of Multichoice.
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