To counter Netflix, MultiChoice relies on sports and local fictions

Faced with competition from the American giants, the South African on-demand television service MultiChoice wants to offer its subscribers new adapted content.

Since 2015, Netflix eyeing the African market. The American streaming platform indeed offers “Nollywood” films and more and more content produced and produced on the continent. According to the American firm Digital TV Research, Netflix aims, by 2023, around 4 million subscribers for Africa alone, or double the number of 2018. And while Disney + is also targeting an African breakthrough, the streaming players on the continent are fronting.

This is the case of DStv, the subsidiary of MultiChoice. The video on demand service has decided to offer an offer based on two types of productions highly appreciated by subscribers: local dramas but above all live sports. New services which aim to thwart the expansion of American multinationals.

“Competition will take place, but we will see some overlap between services,” says Calvo Mawela, managing director of MultiChoice, who believes in the chances of his business. "When it comes to the content that we have created ourselves, we are the best in sports and the home of local content in local languages," he said, quoted by the Ecofin agency. No matter how fluent people are, they still want to hear the languages ​​they can speak on a daily basis. This is where we can position ourselves ”.

Bet on live

Dialects will therefore necessarily have a special place in MultiChoice, which relies above all on South Africa to test its new offers. But the platform also hopes to attract new subscribers on the rest of the continent, and particularly in English-speaking countries.

And to best compete with Netflix, then Disney +, MultiChoice will focus particularly on its local presence, by broadcasting live events. And it is perhaps on this point that the platform will succeed in standing out from the international competition. Because if Netflix and the others have the means of their ambitions, the live broadcasts of African events do not seem, today, in the pipes.

From now on, MultiChoice's ambitions are clear: to increase the number of its subscribers. With DStv, but also via its other streaming service, Showmax, which holds more than 36% of the market share in this sector in South Africa.

The South African authorities, to give African streaming platforms a chance, are trying to force international broadcasters to offer at least 30% African content to their subscribers.