Canal+ to circumvent South Africa's strict foreign media ownership rules in its MultiChoice takeover bid through stock exchange double-listing.

by Bloomberg

Canal+ will try to circumvent South Africa's foreign media ownership regulations in its takeover attempt of MultiChoice through a stock exchange double-listing of the new entity in both South Africa as well as in Europe.

Canal+ formally made an upped offer of R35 billion for MultiChoice as it tries a buyout of the powerful pan-African pay-TV operator. Canal+ values MultiChoice at $2.9 billion (R54.02 billion).

Vivendi SE's Canal+ plans to use its all-cash offer for the MultiChoice Group to create a global media company listed in Europe and South Africa that will compete with American entertainment giants.

"A combined entity will be double listed in Europe and Johannesburg," Canal+ chief executive officer Maxime Saada said in an interview on Monday.

The plan to keep a local listing comes as the French company must navigate South Africa's strict limits on foreign media ownership in order to close the deal.

South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe could join Canal+ to get a deal done, although discussions are at an early stage, Bloomberg previously reported citing people familiar with the matter.

"We are confident that we can address the foreign ownership topic, as we are present in 50 countries and there are a number of countries where this type of rule is in place, including in France," said Saada.

Vivendi is preparing a plan to split into four publicly traded units, including Canal+, as it seeks better value from its assets after it listed its most valuable business, Universal Music Group NV.

Saada said the deal was intended to boost scale and purchasing power when going up against competitors to buy US content.

"To extract value from that, and invest in African content and help it reach global audiences, it only makes sense to be part of a global company," Saada said.

MultiChoice balked at the initial offer of R105 per share and Canal+ since raised its bid to R125.

Canal+ began buying shares in MultiChoice in 2020 and surpassed a 35% holding in the company this year, triggering a mandatory takeover offer.

Vivendi has developed a strong presence in high-growth regions in Africa and Asia. Vivendi said previously that it plans to keep MultiChoice listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

The latest deal could see a combination of Canal+ operations with MultiChoice creating a group with almost 50 million subscribers.

ALSO READ: Canal+ makes MultiChoice an official R35 billion takeover offer.

Africa's pay-TV subscribers to grow to 57 million by 2027 as top-three operators MultiChoice, StarTimes and Canal Plus will be forced to cut prices to woo customers.

by Thinus Ferreira

Africa's pay-TV subscriber base will increase by another 18 million pay-TV customers over the next 5 years to 57 million subscribers by 2027 with MultiChoice, StarSat and Canal Plus battling it out for subscribers as the top three and being forced to cut prices.

According to the latest African pay-TV forecast from Digital TV Research, Africa will add another 18 million pay-TV subscribers over the next 5 years for a total of 57 million pay-TV users by 2027.

While this will represent a pay-TV consumer increase of 46% over the next 5 years, pay-TV revenues in Africa will only rise by 35% since pay-TV operators will be forced to cut prices in order to gain subscribers as the market becomes saturated.

According to Digital TV Research's latest forecast, Africa's pay-TV revenues will reach $6.46 billion by 2027, up from $4.78 billion in 2021, with MultiChoice, StarTimes and France's Canal Plus (that has an ever-growing stake in MultiChoice) battling it out as the top three pay-TV operators on the African continent.

Together, MultiChoice (DStv and GOtv), StarTimes (that also operates under StarSat in South Africa and other select Southern African countries), and Canal Plus will remain the top three pay-TV operators.

By 2027 MultiChoice is expected to have 20.8 million pay-TV subscribers ( 14.6million DStv subscribers, 6.2 million GOtv subscribers), followed by StarTimes with 18.4 million (12.6 million StarTimes subscribers, 5.8million StarSat subscribers), and Canal Plus with 11.2 million subscribers.

"Few new players are expected. Instead, the three protagonists will battle for supremacy – often by cutting prices," says Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research.

SABC1 adds new 13-episode Sunday night Agent football drama series with Kay Sibiya and Sisanda Henna.

by Thinus Ferreira

SABC1 is adding a new local drama series, Agent, to Sunday nights from 8 March revolving around an egotistical football star and his unpredictable and volatile agent, played by Sisanda Henna and Kay Sibiya.

The 13-episode hourlong series that starts on Sunday 8 March at 21:30 on SABC was produced as a co-production between Cinebar Studios and Canal+ International and was created and written by Athos Kyriakides who also does duty director duty alongside Sean Els and Jon Rabaud.

Agent, executive produced by Danie Halgryn and Andrea Habermeyer, explores some of the wheeling and dealing that goes on behind-the-scenes in the modern-day football industrial complex.

Within this world filled with sociopathic rival agents, megalomaniac club owners, scheming professional football players and their gold-digging football wags, compromised club managers, and duplicitous witch-doctors, everyone shamelessly hustle and negotiate inside the corridors of power of the beautiful game.

Sisanda Henna portrays Lesego "Ace" Moleko, one of the biggest strikers in South Africa with an ego that knows no bounds. Lurching from one scandal to the next, he wears the number 9 shirt while his personalised number plate reads "God".

Slindile "Blaze" Magoba (Kay Sibiya) is a former professional football player whose career ended prematurely due to an injury but reinvented himself as a fierce and mercurial soccer agent who cares about his clients. He's however wrestling with a "fatal secret" that he buried 6 years ago.

Ace is Blaze's number one client but also his biggest headache.

The rest of the Agent cast includes Pamela Nomvete (Godi Zulu), Zweli Dube (Phumlani Mbebe), Tarryn Wyngaard (Nathalie Isaacs), Makgotso M (Delilah Skosana), Paballo Moganedi (Kim Moyo) and Owen Sejake in the role of Walter Mbebe.

Other cast members include Manie Malone (Nina Sankara), Thabo Malema (Vuyo Moyo), Robert Mpisi (Monte Skosana), Virgile Bramly (Jean-Pierre Yasbeck), Yannick Konan (Herve Toure), Michaella Russell (Mila Dior), Vinaya Sungkur (Jade Singh) Sarah Kozlowski (Zoe Zante) and Gabriella Cirillo (Jackie East).

Anthony Oseyemi plays the character of Christopher Kilembe, a powerful sports lawyer who is ruthless and relentless.

Set in Johannesburg and written by Athos Kyriakides, Nonzi Bogatsu, Elan Gamaker and Salah Sabiti, Agent includes a vintage 70's funk soundtrack mixed with psychedelic alternative ballads and contemporary African and South African hip hop.

Africa set to add 17.4 million pay-TV subscribers in the next 5 years as pay-TV subscriptions on the continent continue to soar.

Pay-TV subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa is set to soar and will continue its massive growth in the next 5 years, increasing by 74% between 2017 and 2025, and adding 17.4 million pay-TV subscribers to reach 40.89 million pay-TV households according to the projections in a new research report compiled by Digital TV research.

Together with pay-TV growth, will come an increase in competition, with competing pay-TV companies that are already lowering subscription fees and subsidising decoder costs.

Over the same period, according to projections, pay-TV revenue in sub-Saharan Africa will increase by 14% to $6.64 billion.

While South Africa continues to have the most pay-TV subscribers on the continent, Nigeria is set to overtake South Africa by 2021.

By 2023 South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be the top 5 pay-TV countries in Africa according to pay-TV subscriber numbers; followed by Uganda, the Ivory Coast and Angola.

These top 8 African countries according to pay-TV subscribers by 2023 will collectively have three-quarters of the total pay-TV subscriber market by 2023.

From the current 23.49 million pay-TV subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2017, 13.78 million were satellite pay-TV subscribers and 9.11 million were digital terrestrial television (DTT) pay-TV subscribers.

According to Digital TV Research, by 2023 this will have grown to 40.89 million for satellite TV and 8 million DTT pay-TV subscribers.

MultiChoice had 12.48 million subscribers across its DStv satellite pay-TV platform service and its GOtv DTT service by the end of 2017, and that is set to increase to 16.66 million by 2023 according to growth estimates.

Naspers' MultiChoice remains by far the largest pay-TV operator on the African continent.

Vivendi had 2.96 million subscribers for its Canal Plus satellite pay-TV platform and Easy TV at the end of 2017 and will likely increase this to 4.87 million by 2023.
 
StarTimes,operating as StarSat in South Africa see its subscriber base in Africa and South Africa increase from 6.23 million subscribers at the end of 2017 to 13.42 million by 2023.

“Pay-TV competition in sub-Saharan Africa is becoming more and more intense, especially given the launch of Kwesé in 14 countries during 2017," says analyst Simon Murray who compiled the research.

StarTimes' message to Africa's pay-TV operators: 'In 5 years we will be the digital TV operator with the most pay-TV subscribers in Africa'.

China's StarTimes has a blunt message for MultiChoice, Wananchi, Canal Plus and the African continent's other pay-TV operators: It says in 5 years it will be the biggest digital pay-TV operator in Africa.

Pang Xinxing, the head of StarTimes, the Beijing based pay-TV conglomerate that's been making huge inroads in Africa's fast-growing pay-TV market, has been visiting South Africa this week for the first China-Africa Media Leadership Summit held in Cape Town co-organised by Naspers and StarTimes, as well as for the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in Johannesburg.

Besides the StarTimes brand in the rest of Africa, StarTimes, through StarTimes Media South Africa, now runs the rebranded StarSat pay-TV service in South Africa.

Pang Xinxing is clear: "In five years, we will be the digital TV operator with the most subscribers in Africa," he says.

"We will also strengthen content production by translating and dubbing more Chinese programmes and opening channels exclusively for Chinese programmes in multiple local languages".

Pang Xinxing says StarTimes - that currently has over 4 000 employees - 3 000 of whom are based in Africa - is now considering buying Chinese Football Association League games and introducing African soccer players to Chinese soccer clubs.

StarTimes will gradually start to introduce much more Chinese sports ranging from swimming and diving to gymnastics, table tennis and much more on its African sports channels.

StarTimes new 26 000 m² African headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya will become operational in 2017.

StarTimes says it now has "over 440 authorised channels" on its pay-TV services, featuring news, movies, series, sports, entertainment, children's programmess, fashion, religion, music and lifestyle channels and content.

The channel's on StarTimes' platforms are broadcast in 10 different languages like English, French, Portuguese, Africa indigenous languages and Chinese and StarTimes says that "African channels take up the majority of all the 440 channels".

StarTimes in Africa now has 5 digital TV centres, 11 earth satellite uplink stations and 160 high-powered digital terrestrial television transmitters.

"StarTimes has managed to meet over 700 million African individuals, and is considered to be the fastest-growing and most influential digital terrestrial television (DTT) operator," says Pang Xinxing.

"We have one key goal, which is to enable every African household to have access to, afford and enjoy the beauty of Digital TV".

Pang Xinxing says StarTimes sees itself as assisting China to "create strong and mutually beneficial relationships in China".

Naspers chairperson Koos Bekker at the China-Africa Media Leadership Summit said MultiChoice is also embracing Chinese TV content on its DStv satellite pay-TV service.

"Three years ago we launched the Great Wall of Africa. This is a package of 11 top Chinese language TV channels broadcast all over Sub-Saharan Africa. It serves our Chinese DStv customers, as well as Africans who would like to learn more about this great nation".

According to the latest report of Digital Television Forecast in Sub-Sahara Africa released by Digital Television Study in the United Kingdom, digital television household penetration in Sub-Sahara Africa will soon exceed 50%.

It is estimated that digital migration to DTT will reach almost every African TV household by 2020.

It means that 20 million African TV households will appear in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2020.

Pay-TV revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa is $3.17 billion - estimated to grow by a massive 69% to $5.35 billion by 2020.