The End of an Era: Showmax Shuts Down After $291.3m Trading Loss
On March 5, 2026, Canal+ announced the closure of Showmax, marking the end of a decade-long effort to build a viable African streaming alternative. This decision came one year after Amazon MGM Studios announced a significant restructuring of its Prime Video operations in Africa and the Middle East, halting the commissioning of new local original content in Nigeria and other African markets in January 2024.
These closures reflect a broader shift in how audiences consume content across Africa, where social media platforms, free streaming services, and local television have reshaped the entertainment landscape.
Showmax launched in South Africa on August 19, 2015, as MultiChoice's strategic response to Netflix's expansion into African markets. The platform positioned itself as Africa's answer to global streaming giants, providing a mix of local and international content tailored for the continent's diverse audiences. Showmax operated as a modest complement to DStv, providing on-demand content across more than 40 African markets.
By November 2023, Showmax had achieved a significant milestone, surpassing Netflix in Africa with 2.1 million subscribers compared to Netflix's 1.8 million. This success appeared to validate MultiChoice's localisation strategy, which focused on African storytelling, partnerships with mobile telecommunications companies, and content in multiple African languages including English, Swahili, Zulu, and Afrikaans.
In March 2023, MultiChoice escalated its streaming ambitions with a transformative partnership. NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, acquired a 30% stake in Showmax, bringing Peacock's streaming technology and a pipeline of premium content from NBCUniversal, Sky, HBO, Warner Bros, and Sony. The deal also included live English Premier League football streaming.
The revamped Showmax 2.0 launched in February 2024 with three subscription tiers.
In Kenya, pricing ranged from Ksh 300 per month for the mobile-only entertainment plan to KSh 1,000 for all-device access with Premier League coverage. By August 2025, facing mounting pressure, MultiChoice slashed prices further, dropping the mobile plan to Ksh 200 and the standard plan to Ksh 550.
Despite the massive investment, which totalled approximately $309 million in equity funding from MultiChoice and NBCUniversal, the platform never achieved its projected targets.
The Canal+ Takeover and Cost-Cutting
In September 2025, French media giant Canal+ completed its $2 billion takeover of MultiChoice, becoming Africa's dominant pay-TV player with over 40 million subscribers across nearly 70 countries. Under CEO Maxime Saada, Canal+ moved swiftly to implement aggressive cost-cutting measures aimed at saving €400 million by 2030.
In September 2025, French media giant Canal+ completed its $2 billion takeover of MultiChoice, becoming Africa's dominant pay-TV player with over 40 million subscribers across nearly 70 countries.
In January 2026, Saada told investment analysts that Showmax was not a commercial success and that its failure was quite obvious. MultiChoice CEO David Mignot was equally direct, describing that the platform could not continue in its current form.
On March 5, 2026, Canal+ officially announced Showmax's closure. The decision will not involve any retrenchments due to a three-year employment protection clause in the takeover agreement.
MultiChoice has already begun rebranding several Showmax Originals as content for its television channels, including Africa Magic, M-Net, Mzansi Magic, and kykNET.
The Market Reality
The problem wasn't the product. Showmax was genuinely well-adapted to the Kenyan market better than most gave it credit for.
The transformation was driven by mobile penetration and data accessibility. With smartphones becoming more affordable and mobile data packages more available, audiences could easily access the platform- either on TV or on mobile.
Showmax's struggles coincide with significant challenges currently faced by its parent company, Multichoice.
Over the past two years, MultiChoice has experienced a loss of 2.8 million linear TV subscribers, resulting in a decline of its active customer base to 14.5 million.
The group attributed its decreasing sales and profit to a "severely strained consumer environment," foreign exchange volatility, intense competition from international streaming services, and extensive piracy.
Showmax's closure raises fundamental questions about the future of subscription streaming in African markets.
This isn't a temporary gap waiting to be closed. It's a structural feature of the market that will shape media consumption for years to come.
What Does It Mean In Reaching African Audiences
It's worth noting that television retains significant audiences for live events, news, and premium sports. The disruption is concentrated in on-demand entertainment and news consumption among urban youth.
A complete picture of African media requires understanding all of these layers simultaneously.
The Ad-Supported Feature
YouTube's success in Africa demonstrates what a workable model looks like: free access funded by advertising, revenue shared with local creators, content discovery powered by algorithms trained on local behaviour. It is not perfect, data costs still create friction, but it aligns with how African audiences actually want to consume content. T
he future of long-form streaming in Africa likely looks more like YouTube Premium than Netflix: a free tier as the default, with optional paid upgrades for specific value. In January 2026, Canal+ SA revealed that it was preparing to launch a unified streaming service across Africa.
Micro-payment Infrastructure
Africa's mobile money ecosystem, M-Pesa and its equivalents across the continent, create an infrastructure for micro-payments that carve out a sustainable positioning.
Platforms that can integrate frictionlessly with mobile money, offer daily and weekly options, and price at the granularity that matches African income patterns.
The Co-Creation And Creator Economy Distribution
The most watched content in African markets is increasingly local. Locally-made content filmed on smartphones, posted to YouTube or TikTok, discovered organically, and shared peer-to-peer. Authenticity and relatability are outcompeting production values.
Television retains significant audiences for live events, local content, and premium sports. The disruption is concentrated in on-demand entertainment and news consumption among urban youth. Showmax’s exit raises questions about the creator economy and access to affordable entertainment.
The next chapter of African media will be written by whoever understands this continent on its own terms: its infrastructure realities, its economic constraints, its generational habits, and its genuine hunger for stories told in its own languages, from its own cities, about its own lives. That platform hasn't fully arrived yet. But the conditions that will produce it are already in place.
Reelananalytics provides actionable media and market insights to brands and organizations across Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Malawi, Somalia and Zambia. Through comprehensive monitoring of traditional and digital media platforms, Reelanalytics helps clients understand media performance, optimizing media investments, and enhanced data-driven communication strategies. Reelanalytics provides critical intelligence for organisations navigating Africa's rapidly evolving media landscape