In September 2025, Canal+ accomplished a 20-month company chess recreation to take management of MultiChoice, Africa’s largest pay-TV group. Past the headlines, this deal resets energy in African media: overseas possession on the prime, a dash to a single “tremendous app,” and a brand new struggle with international streamers. Right here’s how the takeover unfolded and why it issues.
Canal+ wished scale, sports activities rights leverage, and a deep native footprint throughout Anglophone and Francophone Africa. MultiChoice wished room to compete with international streamers whereas stabilising a legacy decoder enterprise. The outcome: a gradual drift towards a buyout that solved each issues — capital and functionality — in a single transfer.
South Africa’s Digital Communications Act caps overseas possession of a South African broadcast licencee at 20%. Standing nonetheless, that rule would have blocked management. The workaround was structural: separate the South African broadcasting licence right into a ring-fenced, domestically managed entity whereas Canal+ owns the broader group. Formally native in South Africa; strategically international on the father or mother. Deal saved.
The 20-month timeline and what every step meant
Feb 1, 2024 — The opening bid
Canal+, already the most important shareholder, makes a non-binding supply at ZAR 105/share. MultiChoice rejects it as undervalued, signalling the beginning of a drawn-out negotiation.
Feb 28, 2024 — Regulator forces the difficulty
The Takeover Regulation Panel (TRP) guidelines that Canal+ has crossed the 35% threshold, triggering a compulsory supply to all different shareholders.
March 5, 2024 — The agency supply
Canal+ raises its bid to ZAR 125/share in money, valuing MultiChoice at about $3 billion and exhibiting it intends to shut the deal.
April 2024 – Canal+ will increase Multichoice stake to 40%
Canal+ is rising its stake to 40.8% between April 12 and 15, shopping for 3.5 million MultiChoice shares at a median worth of R116 per share.
Jun 4, 2024 — Round to shareholders
An in depth “Mixed Round” lands, outlining the total phrases and timetable of the supply.
Might 21, 2025 — First regulatory inexperienced gentle
The Competitors Fee recommends approval, eradicating the largest antitrust hurdle.
Jul 23, 2025 — Tribunal approval (with a catch)
The Competitors Tribunal approves the deal however highlights the 20 p.c foreign-ownership cap. Canal+ should discover a authorized workaround or danger collapse.
Aug–Sep 2025 — The reorganisation
MultiChoice carves out MultiChoice (Pty) Ltd, the native broadcast licencee, below South African management. The construction satisfies the regulation with out dropping Canal+ oversight.
Sep 19, 2025 — Provide goes unconditional
All circumstances cleared. The takeover is now unstoppable.
Sep 22, 2025 — Canal+ takes efficient management
A brand new board is put in, chaired by Maxime Saada, and MultiChoice aligns its monetary year-end with its new father or mother’s.
Oct 10, 2025 — Provide closes
The ultimate window for shareholders to just accept the supply shuts.
Oct 13, 2025 — The tally
Canal+ confirms possession of 94.39% of MultiChoice shares.
Oct 13 2025 — The squeeze-out
Crossing the 90% threshold lets Canal+ compulsorily purchase the remaining shares and delist MultiChoice from the Johannesburg Inventory Trade.
What modifications now
The mud has barely settled, but the shift is already seen. Inside weeks of the takeover, Canal+ moved to sign a brand new period for DStv and its sister manufacturers. Decoder costs had been quietly trimmed, a defensive play to gradual subscriber churn whereas the corporate prepares its subsequent huge step: merging DStv, GOtv, and Showmax into one ecosystem.
Canal+ needs a single product that appears and feels fashionable, a “tremendous app” the place stay TV, streaming, and funds coexist. The corporate’s French DNA provides it a robust content material pipeline: new Ligue 1 matches have entered the DStv schedule, and “Open Time” weekends now let non-premium viewers pattern higher-tier channels, a tactic designed to push upgrades with out elevating costs.
For households, this may increasingly imply extra content material at decrease entry prices — not less than for now. For African filmmakers and sports activities producers, it opens an even bigger purchaser with deeper pockets and an urge for food for exclusivity. Nevertheless it additionally tightens the gate: fewer distributors controlling what hundreds of thousands watch.
A brand new centre of gravity
Canal+ good points a distribution engine spanning 40 million subscribers and unmatched attain in each Anglophone and Francophone markets. MultiChoice, lengthy the continent’s home-grown champion, now has the capital and catalogue to compete globally, however on the worth of independence.
Regulators, for his or her half, have achieved a fragile stability: they preserved native possession in regulation whereas successfully permitting a overseas father or mother to set the strategic agenda. That compromise will outline future cross-border media offers in South Africa.
The takeover additionally reframes Africa’s streaming wars. Netflix and Amazon are actually up in opposition to a competitor with a long time of billing relationships, satellite tv for pc infrastructure, and model belief in residing rooms throughout the continent. For the primary time, the competitors for African display time could also be led from Johannesburg and Paris somewhat than Silicon Valley.
The questions forward
The following yr will reveal whether or not the mixing can match the ambition. Can Canal+ actually unify its decoder, terrestrial, and OTT merchandise right into a seamless expertise? Will its lower-price play stay a everlasting shift or a short-term hook? And the way “native” can a foreign-owned broadcaster stay when its selections — from sports activities rights to editorial priorities — ripple via African tradition?
Regardless of the solutions, one factor is obvious: this was greater than a takeover. It was a handover of Africa’s tv future, brokered in boardrooms however destined to play out in residing rooms throughout the continent.
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