#35: MultiChoice - How the South African Pay TV pioneer became the largest entertainment provider across Africa

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

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Episodes at Afrobility.com