#35: MultiChoice - How the South African Pay TV pioneer became the largest entertainment provider across Africa
Afrobility: Africa Tech and BusinessPlay episode
Show notes
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
Listeners: We’d love to hear from you. Please email info@afrobility.com with your feedback!
Founders: We'd love to hear about you & what you're working on, email us at info@afrobility.com
Investors: We'd also love to link up with you, to partner to drive the ecosystem forward. Contact us at info@afrobility.com
Episodes at Afrobility.com
