French media giant Canal+ has officially completed its full acquisition of MultiChoice Group, the parent company of DStv and GOtv, in a landmark $3 billion (approximately 7.66 Trillion Tanzania Shillings ) deal. The acquisition, which gives Canal+ the remaining 55% stake it did not previously own, received final approval from South Africa’s Competition Tribunal on Wednesday, July 23, 2025.
The approval, which comes after months of intense negotiations and regulatory reviews, paves the way for the deal to be finalized by October 8, 2025. The Tribunal’s green light included several public interest conditions to safeguard local content, protect jobs, and ensure South Africa’s media sovereignty. These conditions include a commitment from Canal+ to invest approximately 26 billion rand over the next three years in initiatives aligned with South Africa’s public interest objectives, such as retaining MultiChoice’s headquarters in South Africa and maintaining investment in local content and sports broadcasting.
The merger is expected to create a multilingual media powerhouse, combining Canal+’s French-language content with MultiChoice’s dominant English and Portuguese offerings. MultiChoice, with over 14.5 million subscribers across 50 sub-Saharan African countries and flagship platforms like DStv and GOtv, along with premium content brands such as SuperSport, was an attractive acquisition for Canal+, which already operates in 25 African countries with over eight million subscribers. Canal+ aims to significantly scale up its presence, targeting 50 to 100 million subscribers across the continent in the coming years.
To comply with South African broadcasting laws limiting foreign ownership, MultiChoice’s South African operations will shift to a new entity, LicenceCo, which will be majority-owned by historically disadvantaged persons. Canal+ will hold 20% voting rights in LicenceCo and 49% of the economic interest will remain with MultiChoice Group. Both companies have stated that customers are not expected to experience service disruptions and have reaffirmed their commitment to continued investment in local content and production.
