How Showmax failed

CURTAIN FALLS: BILLIONS WASTED, WELL OVER R10BN IN TRADING LOSSES

- Hilton Tarrant

SHOW'S OVER. 'Not a commercial success' - yet it's still not obvious MultiChoice would have closed the taps on Showmax itself.

(Picture: Reuters)

In the year to April 2025, for every R99 in subscription fees a Showmax subscriber paid for the service, the venture with NBCUniversal (a division of Comcast) was losing R650.

MultiChoice pinned its hopes on the streaming service being a competitor to global platforms such as Netflix and Disney+, but this effort came to an inglorious end.

Canal+, the new owner of MultiChoice, announced on Thursday that "following a comprehensive review of its streaming activities" Showmax is to be "phase[d] out".

This is a remarkable, but not unexpected, call from the new owner. The end of the standalone Showmax streaming service has been a long time coming, with Canal+ Group CEO Maxime Saada saying shortly after the acquisition that he did not believe that MultiChoice's multi-brand plan would work.