DStv customers are facing the risk of losing twelve main news and entertainment channels. This follows the upcoming expiration of a contract between MultiChoice and Warner Bros that allowed DStv and GOtv to broadcast the channels. This contract is set to expire this month and MultiChoice and Warner Bros are yet to reach an agreement on a fresh renewal.
Already MultiChoice, which is the company that owns DStv and GOtv has already sent a notice to its customers in South Africa.
“The distribution agreement between MultiChoice and Warner Bros. Discovery is scheduled to end on December 31, 2025. While discussions between the parties continue, no agreement has been reached at this stage,” the company said in a notice to its customers in South Africa.
The notice went on to state that if the situation remains unchanged, a number of Warner Bros. Discovery channels may n longer be available on DStv from January 1, 2026. These channels include CNN International, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, TLC, and TNT Africa.
This is the latest storm to strike MultiChoice. Currently, the company is grappling with reduced customer numbers. In Kenya for instance, the company has recorded drastic reductions as customer walk away from pay television to online streaming.
The pay television service provider lost more than 84 percent of its DStv Kenya customers in the year to June 30, 2025. This is after the company implemented price hikes that subscribers couldn’t keep up with.
According to the latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), MultiChoice had 1.19 million active subscribers as at June 30, 2024. As at June 30, 2025, this number had fallen to 188,824, representing a drop of about 84.13 percent.
In August this year, MultiChoice slapped subscribers with price hikes of up to Sh700. This increase came barely months after the company hiked the prices by up to Sh500 in November last year. In April 2024, the company had also reviewed its prices upwards.
In the August review, the Premium package was hiked to Sh11,700 up from Sh11,000. The package had previously been hiked from Sh10,500 in 2024. This means that within nine months, the cost of subscribing to this package increased by Sh1,200.
Subscribers on the Compact Plus package were asked to pay Sh7,300 up from Sh6,800. In November 2024, this package had been hiked from Sh6,500 to Sh6,800.
On the Compact package, viewers were told to pay Sh4,200 which was Sh300 more than the previous price of Sh3,900. Last year, this package had been hiked from Sh3,700 to Sh3,900.
On the Family package, subscribers coughed up Sh2,250 from the current Sh2,100. In the latest review, the cost of this package had been hiked by Sh150. Last year, it had been increased by Sh100 from Sh2,000 to Sh2,100 per month.
“These changes are part of MultiChoice’s annual subscription review, which is conducted with great care to ensure customers receive the best of both local and international content,” MultiChoice had said in a statement. “The company aims to keep these adjustments sustainable while continuing to provide quality services to its customers.”
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