French media giant Canal+ has officially taken control of MultiChoice, the company which owns Showmax and DStv, and it isn’t wasting any time cutting costs.<\/p>\n
In two years, Multichoice has lost 2.8 million subscribers, with many customers opting for cheaper streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n
The French firm is now trying to save even more at DSTV, a massive \u20ac400 million a year by 2030.<\/p>\n
TV critic Thinus Ferreira says the ripple effects of these austerity measures could be severe.<\/p>\n
“Chaos and growing chaos behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
“Canal+ can’t fire people for at least three years, but they have to get the cost down. One of the things they are doing is taking away all acquisition power from SuperSport; our new European masters are deciding which sports they will buy.”<\/p>\n
The impact is already starting to show, says Ferreira, noting that for the first time in years, DStv subscribers don\u2019t have viewing rights to the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
“It’s because Canal+ has decided not to buy it, like the World Darts Championships and other things.”<\/p>\n
Moreover, locally produced shows will also feel the hit.<\/p>\n
It’s reported that suppliers were asked for 20% invoice cuts, impacting production houses, freelancers and even the actors who star in South Africa’s best-loved shows.<\/p>\n
“Contracts for a lot of local shows are simply just piling up at Canal+ in Paris. They have to sign off on those contracts, and they either want them cheaper or they don’t want the contract.”<\/p>\n
Ferreira says he has approached Canal+, who have declined to comment.<\/p>\n
To listen to Ferreira in conversation with 702 Gugs Mhlungu, use the audio player below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French media giant Canal+ has officially taken control of MultiChoice, the company which owns Showmax and DStv, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,115924,115925,115928,115927,115926,1347,44,3357,115931,115930,115929,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-483579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ewn","12":"tag-ewn-news","13":"tag-ewn-south-africa","14":"tag-eye-witness-news","15":"tag-eyewitness-news","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-news-today","19":"tag-prime-media-plus","20":"tag-primedia-plus","21":"tag-primedia","22":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}