#35: MultiChoice - How the South African Pay TV pioneer became the largest entertainment provider across Africa

Afrobility: Africa Tech and Business

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Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about MultiChoice - The African video entertainment provider. We’ll explore the MultiChoice story across 5 areas:

South African video entertainment market context
MultiChoice's launch & growth over time
MultiChoice's product & monetization strategy
Competition, primary & emerging businesses
Overall outlook

This episode was recorded on August 15, 2021

Companies discussed: MultiChoice (M-Net), Naspers, MTN, ShowMax, BetKing, Comcast, Sky, DSTV, MTN, Iroko TV, HiTV, StarTimes, Vivendi Canal+, ROK Media, English Premier League, Netflix, HBO Max, ShowMax, Showtime & BBC

Business concepts discussed: Pan-African expansion strategy, Entertainment content acquisition strategy, subscription & hardware monetization strategy

Conversation highlights:

(02:20) - Why we’re talking about MultiChoice
(06:50) - South African TV context
(15:28) - Origin and early history of MultiChoice
(26:10) - Product & monetization strategy
(34:05) - MultiChoice device / decoder strategy
(38:20) - Content, Partnerships & M&A
(42:30) - MultiChoice Financials and key metrics
(46:54) - Competition across different business lines
(51:40) - Non-core businesses and investments, BetKing
(1:05:00) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
(1:12:02) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
(1:26:28) - Recommendations and small wins

Olumide’s recommendations & small wins:

Recommendation: Die with Zero (Bill Perkins)
Small wins: Night out with SF friends & Sailing with friends in Sausalito

Bankole’s recommendations & small wins:

Recommendation: Omah Lay - Understand & Robert Smith of Vista Equity on Money Maze Podcast
Small wins: Attended a wedding last weekend, Happy Married Life Dami! + Chelsea FC Winnning!
Other content mentioned: South Africa as TV’s last frontier

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