Canal+ Moves to Shut Down Showmax After Years of Losses

Canal+ and MultiChoice confirmed earlier today that Showmax, the pan-African streaming service currently operated as a joint venture between MultiChoice and NBCUniversal (Comcast), will be discontinued. Subscribers received an official notification on March 5 stating that the Showmax board had decided to shut down the service "in the near future," with no specific date provided. The email told subscribers that service would continue uninterrupted for now, and that they would receive advance notice before any changes took effect.

In a statement to Variety, which first reported the story, Canal+ and MultiChoice said the decision followed "a comprehensive review of streaming activities" and reflected "continued focus on financial discipline and investment optimization, in an increasingly competitive and capital-intensive global streaming environment."

A specific shutdown date has not been announced, with Variety reporting that Canal+ and MultiChoice are still working through the legal implications of the closure, though the article does not elaborate on what those might be.

Based on my coverage of the Canal+/MultiChoice acquisition and the deal structure around Showmax, the most consequential move is likely to be unwinding the joint venture with NBCUniversal, which holds a 30% equity stake in Showmax. Dissolving a joint venture of that size requires agreement — or, if agreement cannot be reached, arbitration — on how that stake will be valued, how any remaining assets will be distributed, and how any liabilities will be distributed between the parties.

NBCUniversal also supplied the platform's underlying Peacock technology, probably under a separate licensing agreement with its own termination requirements and likely an exit cost.

Showmax will also have active content licensing agreements with studios, distributors, and independent producers — contracts that do not dissolve automatically because the platform is closing. Some of those rights may need to be formally surrendered, reassigned, or bought out.

Additionally, the announced plan to migrate Showmax Originals to MultiChoice's linear television channels, including Africa Magic, M-Net, kykNET, and Mzansi Magic, isn't so straightforward. Original commissioning contracts are typically written for a specific platform and window. Whether those agreements permit a migration to linear broadcast, who pays if they don't, and whether producers have any recourse, are all issues that will need to be resolved before those titles can air anywhere.

Finally, there are obligations under the subscriber contract. South African consumer protection law requires proper notice and refunds or continued service during prepaid billing periods.

To be sure, none of this is unusual for a joint venture of this scale, nor does it suggest the closure decision itself is in any doubt.

The financial case for the closure has been clear for some time. MultiChoice and NBCUniversal put a combined $309 million into Showmax, most of it toward content and the 2024 platform rebuild. By the time Canal+ completed its takeover of MultiChoice in September 2025, Showmax's trading losses had worsened 88% year-on-year, and revenue was falling. The subscriber numbers that MultiChoice executives had promised investors before the relaunch never arrived.

Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada was direct about it in January. On an analyst call, he called Showmax's performance "not a commercial success" and said the failure was "quite obvious." He added that cutting the Showmax budget would contribute meaningfully to the group's cost targets by 2030, a target it set publicly in a January 29 press release.

Akoroko has tracked the inevitability and rationale in recent reports. The January 31 edition examined Canal+'s stated plans to cut overlapping costs and what that meant for Showmax's survival as a standalone platform.

As I said in that dispatch: "My take? Showmax is likely history, but not yet. Canal+ can't move on it while NBCUniversal parent company Comcast holds 30%, and the platform still runs on Comcast's Peacock technology. The 'advanced discussions' Saada mentioned on the January 29 call are about clearing that path before anything else happens. Once it's clear, the logical move is folding everything into Canal+'s existing app, which already aggregates third-party content and serves Francophone African markets. Doing so also fits the cost-savings narrative — the cost of running two streaming operations — and it almost certainly means job losses."

The Canal+ app as the likely endgame

In the March 2 addendum, Canal+ executives were captured as blunt. They argued that infrastructure limits across much of Africa protect their pay-TV business from the kind of streaming competition seen in other regions. Closing Showmax and bundling Netflix instead of competing directly fits that thinking. Essentially, stop burning money competing with Netflix, and start collecting a fee for distributing it instead.

That Canal+/Netflix bundle — currently live across 24 Francophone Sub-Saharan African countries — is expected to expand across the continent.

On staffing, under the terms of its agreement to acquire MultiChoice, Canal+ is contractually prohibited from cutting staff for three years. Showmax employees will be reassigned to other positions within the company. "The group will be engaging and supporting employees through various transition options," the company said.

The next date to watch is March 11, when Canal+ publishes its first full-year combined results since taking control of MultiChoice. CEO Saada indicated in January that the company would use that occasion to lay out a comprehensive strategic update for MultiChoice and its markets.

Originally published by Akoroko on March 5, 2026.