by Thinus Ferreira
The BritBox video streaming service is shutting down in South Africa and exiting in August just three years after it launched in South Africa and forms part of the ongoing trend of global streamer operators closing the taps on their money-guzzling video-on-demand plans for the African continent.
BritBox SA, run by BritBox International as a joint venture between BBC Studios and ITV, launched in South Africa in August 2021 as the fifth territory and only African region it expanded to.
Earlier this year BBC Studios bought out ITV's share and took over full ownership of BritBox, also shutting down BritBox as a standalone service in the United Kingdom.
BBC Studios runs the existing portfolio of BBC branded linear TV channels like BBC Brit, BBC Lifestyle, BBC Earth and CBeebies on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service.
In a statement, BritBox SA says "Sadly BritBox will be closing. Subscribers can watch all their favourite shows until August". BritBox joins the list of failed streamer attempts in South Africa like Altech Node, PCCW's OnTAPTV, Cell C's Black, Telkom ONE and Vodacom's Video Play.
BritBox SA's PR company in South Africa in response to a media query says "BritBox is refocusing on its more established markets and the areas of the business that will have the highest opportunities for growth".
"A large proportion of the content on BritBox has been exclusive to the service in South Africa; however, we expect some of this great British programming will find a new home on other platforms and channels in the territory in the future. There is also a suite of BBC Branded channels on DStv - BBC Earth, BBC Brit, BBC Lifestyle, BBC UKTV, CBeebies and BBC World News".
It's unclear with how many subscribers BritBox exits South Africa and why BBC Studios felt that continuing with the investment into BritBox for the territory wouldn't bear fruit.
A year after BritBox launched in South Africa, Reemah Sakaan, BritBox International CEO, noted that the company was pleased with the performance of BritBox SA, that it had "a really fantastic start" in the country and had "thousands and thousands" of users.
The shuttering of BritBox SA comes after the abrupt exit of AMC Networks' Acorn TV, another British streaming service, from South Africa in November 2022 after four years.
The shuttering of BritBox SA is part of a larger trend of the ongoing funnel of investment into streaming services in South Africa and across the African continent being markedly decreased.
It follows after a reset and decrease in budgets for content spending for streamers in the United States and with these decisions rippling outwards globally.
Earlier this year Amazon MGM Studios shocked producers in South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent when all further projects and all TV and film projects already under development for its Amazon Prime Video service were abruptly cancelled. Amazon also retrenched its South African and Nigerian content commissioning teams.
Last year Netflix also said that it's decreasing its investment on content spending for African Originals, while Disney+ - which is only operational in South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa - also saw the culling of already-commissioned and filmed projects for the EMEA region.
MultiChoice's relaunched Showmax streamer as a joint venture with Comcast's NBCUniversal and Sky is the one African streaming service that has upped its capital expenditure and content investment over the past year to try and radically increase subscriber acquisition on the continent.
Paramount Global, which is struggling and under immense financial pressure in the United States, took too long to launch in South Africa and shelved plans to launch Paramount+ as a standalone service in the country.
Instead, it recently opted to partner with MultiChoice and become just a branded studio tile destination within the relaunched Showmax service. Warner Bros. Discovery is yet to indicate when or whether it still plans to launch its streaming service Max in South Africa.
Showmax, Netflix SA, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ are the main video streaming services aggressively trying to scoop up subscribers in South Africa. While battling each other, they also contend with smaller services like SABC+, eMedia's eVOD, PCCW Media's VIU, Marquee TV, PrideTV and CineMagic all trying to make inroads into the space.
