Month: March 2026

Showmax was supposed to prove that Africa could build its own Netflix. Instead, CANAL+ is closing it down.

The Market Is Not Enough

Showmax, MultiChoice’s OTT streaming service, was Africa’s big bet on homegrown streaming. It ran into a simple problem: it was just too expensive.

Too expensive for viewers once you add the data bill, and too expensive for its owners, who were paying around 385 to 390 million dollars over seven years to run Showmax on Comcast’s Peacock OTT platform while also funding a heavy slate of originals and sport for the wider MultiChoice group.

On paper, Showmax’s costs looked fine. In South Africa, the subscription sat at roughly 5 to 6 dollars a month, similar in Kenya and Uganda, and a bit higher in Zambia once local pricing and currency were factored in.

But the pool of people who can spare that every month is small once you step out of the leafier parts of Jo’burg, Nairobi, Kampala or Lusaka. Zambia’s true middle class is a thin urban slice. Uganda and Kenya have more salaried workers, but even there, “an extra five dollars every month” is a decision, not loose change. And that’s before the cost of data …

The Man with the Golden Bundle

While the Showmax adverts sell the subscription, the real cost lies in the data.

Imagine someone watching 15 hours of Showmax – think of it as roughly four hours each week for a few movies, matches, or episodes.

In South Africa, that can mean an extra $10 to $20 on mobile data, in addition to the $5 to $6 subscription, unless you’re lucky enough to have a generous fibre connection or a great bundle deal. In Kenya and Uganda, smart use of bundles can help save, but most people still find that their data costs more than the subscription for those 15 hours. Zambia, where data is among the most expensive compared to income, could see costs reach $20 to $30 each month for the same viewing time.

So, what looks like a $5 to $8 service often ends up costing two, three, or even four times that once you pay for enough data. That’s a significant expense in these economies. For many families, it pushes Showmax from a small treat to a question of whether it’s worth it at all.

Dr Non

When CANAL+ took over MultiChoice, it inherited a large multi‑year contract to run Showmax on Comcast’s Peacock OTT infrastructure. It also arrived with its own streaming app, myCANAL, and its own way of packaging channels and sports.

From its French headquarters, the question was straightforward: Is it worth funding two overlapping streaming services in Africa and continuing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in platform fees to Comcast for Showmax’s infrastructure when only a narrow urban slice can comfortably afford the subscription, let alone the data costs every month?

Streaming Never Dies

Showmax shutting down does not mean Africans are not streaming. South Africans binge on YouTube and TikTok. Kenyans and Ugandans watch football highlights and short clips on cheap Android phones. Zambians squeeze video into small, carefully managed data bundles. Streaming is happening; it just does not resemble the always-on, multi-subscription lifestyle that Showmax’s business model quietly assumed.

The lesson from Showmax is that you cannot run a high-cost, imported platform-and-content strategy in markets where a $5 to $8 subscription often becomes $15 to $30 once you factor in a month’s worth of data. Any future African streamer that ignores that gap is likely to end up in the same place.

That is why the real story now may be less The Market Is Not Enough for pay-TV companies and more For Your Data Only – telcos deciding which apps get cheap bundles, which platforms are zero‑rated, and which services, like Showmax, end up as occasional luxuries while YouTube and TikTok become the everyday habits.

Uganda’s TV Screens went black for a month. What went wrong?

In broadcasting, a few seconds of black screen and silence is a disaster. In October 2025, every free-to-air television station in Uganda went dark for nearly a month. The national signal distributor, Signet Uganda, could not get its hands on its own transmitters. The equipment sat in customs at Entebbe because the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), Signet’s parent body, could not pay the import taxes. UBC owes roughly UGX 30 billion (around $8 million). The state broadcaster underpinning the entire free-to-air (FTA) system is functionally bankrupt.

That collapse came after a year in which the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) had been cracking down on piracy and unlicensed content. While the regulator chased copyright infringers, the infrastructure carrying every FTA signal in the country was quietly going broke.

Too many stations, too few viewers

As of December 2024, UCC listed 65 licensed television stations. That is extraordinary for a country where only a third of households have a working television. The advertising market cannot sustain them all. Television captured 51% of above-the-line ad spend in the first half of 2025, but that money flows to a handful of established stations. Uganda has no reliable audience measurement, so advertisers are largely guessing. For smaller FTA stations, the struggle is existential.

Piracy was the business model

For years, local FTA stations filled schedules with pirated Hollywood, Nollywood and Latin American content, with no licensing agreements. One commentator for The Independent Uganda described finding a Hollywood blockbuster on a local channel, fresh from its box office release. Piracy in broad daylight.

In February 2025, UCC banned pirated movies, soaps and dramas from local stations. But what would replace them? UCC mandates 70% Ugandan content in prime time, yet the local film industry produces roughly 200 films a year with minimal funding. You cannot mandate content into existence. The Uganda Federation of Movie Industry estimates the government lost UGX 12 billion in pay TV taxes by end 2023. The Uganda Registration Services Bureau puts the annual cost of piracy at $110 million.

A story from the field

One of Jukwa’s team encountered a similar situation in a neighbouring country. A local cable operator was downloading films from The Pirate Bay and airing them on its paid network. We met the national regulator. After discussing enforcement, the staff asked us for a lift to the town where the cable station operated. They did not have money for diesel. It is hard to enforce piracy laws when you cannot afford to drive to the offender.

Local politicians reportedly enjoyed the blockbusters too, making a shutdown politically awkward. Everyone knew about the piracy. No resources and no political will meant nothing happened. Piracy enforcement existed on paper but not in practice. That is not unique to one country. The same dynamic plays out across the continent, and Uganda is no exception.

The pay TV battleground

Three foreign-backed operators dominate. StarTimes (Chinese-owned) offers packages from UGX 14,000/month (roughly $4) and holds 39% of the East African pay TV market. France’s Canal+ acquired MultiChoice (DStv/GOtv) in 2025 for $3 billion. Azam TV (Tanzanian Bakhresa Group) competes via satellite, with packages starting at UGX 10,000/month (around $3).

All three are fighting over a market where 80% of viewers still rely on FTA. Content rights are the differentiator, with sport the battleground. Pirate Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) boxes unlock exactly that premium content, posing an existential threat to the pay TV model.

Then the infrastructure collapsed

The Signet blackout did not come from nowhere. The PML Daily reported that UBC’s debts stretch back to 2016: UGX 7 billion to the Uganda Revenue Authority, UGX 15 billion to the National Social Security Fund, UGX 3 billion in unpaid electricity, plus smaller amounts elsewhere.

The Monitor added that FTA stations owe UBC roughly UGX 6 billion in unpaid carriage fees. The signal distributor cannot collect from its clients, cannot pay its own bills, and cannot release equipment from customs. The government never implemented the television tax envisaged in the 2005 UBC Act. The state broadcaster has no functioning revenue model.

Jukwa’s view

Uganda’s television market is a cautionary tale. Digital migration happened. The regulator handed out licences freely. Foreign operators moved in. But nobody built a sustainable model for local content, funded the public broadcaster, or enforced copyright until the damage was done.

If Signet enforced payment of carriage fees, many weaker stations would fold. That sounds harsh, but 65 stations splitting a thin ad market means most produce low-quality content because they cannot afford anything else. Fewer, viable stations would command larger audiences, attract more revenue, and actually pay Signet. The market needs consolidation, not more licences.

The UCC’s crackdowns addressed symptoms, not causes. Banning pirated content without an alternative leaves empty schedules. We have not even touched on pirate IPTV boxes cannibalising pay TV subscription revenue. Meanwhile, the three foreign-backed operators continue extracting value, and the infrastructure nearly collapsed under its own debts.

One year on, Uganda has more licensed stations than ever and less money to fund them. That is not a functioning television market. It is a market waiting for someone to build one.