By Nqobile Dludla
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa’s pay television group MultiChoice may unbundle its sports channels into a separate subscription package, its CEO said on Thursday, a move that might help it retain subscribers.
Presenting the group’s results a day after reporting a headline loss of 800 million rand ($45 million), CEO Calvo Mawela was asked whether the company was considering separating its sport channels into a separate package.
“As part of our product offering, we have always had this project that we ran every year where we look at our packaging structures, similar to what Sky did some years back where they had a basic package, they had a sports package on the side (and) they had a general entertainment package on the side,” Mawela said.
Through its pay TV, Dstv, MultiChoice offers bundled packages from entry level to premium, which has all the sport channels under its SuperSport brand.
But some customers subscribe to the premium package only for sports, often making it expensive to maintain off season, leading to cancellations.
“We’ve accelerated that project in terms of getting us to finalise which direction we’re going to take in this financial year.
But yes, we are considering all options as part of a broader product offering going forward,” Mawela said.
The decision to unbundle the sports channels comes as MultiChoice, which is a takeover target of France’s Canal+, lost 1.2 million broadcast subscribers over the year ended March 31, to 14.5 million.
It blamed the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, which “has meant that households are struggling to make ends meet and many had no choice but to give up their DStv subscription for the time being.”
At the same time, the South African market has been affected by the ongoing global shift in video consumption towards cheaper streaming services, social media video and free or pirated video services.
($1 = 17.7674 rand)
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
