Possible Takeover: Canal+'s Investment In Viu Currently Stands At Approximately $300m, With The Option To Increase Its Stake To 50% Retained

France’s pay-TV giant Canal+ has ramped up its investment in PCCW’s pan-regional OTT service Viu, bringing its stake in the company to almost 30%. This development follows Canal+’s previous deal struck last year, where it acquired a 26% stake in Viu, marking a significant step in a $300m staged investment plan. The agreement provides Canal+ with the option to potentially acquire a majority (51%) stake in Viu in the future.

Viu, renowned for its extensive Korean content offering, operates across Asia, the Middle East, and South Africa, boasting over 66m monthly active users and 12m paid subscribers. Notably, its lineup includes popular shows like Nenek Bongkok Tiga.

Last year, media research group Omdia highlighted Viu’s dominance in South-Eastern Asia’s OTT video landscape, capturing a 23% market share in online video subscriptions, outpacing competitors such as Disney+ Hotstar and Netflix.

Since its inception in 2016, PCCW-owned streaming service Viu has solidified its position in the region through a strategic focus on providing Asian and localised content, alongside its own Viu Original series. Its subscription and advertising revenue surged significantly last year, with total revenue increasing by 27% and paid subscribers growing by 10% to reach 13.4m. Viu’s subscription revenue witnessed a remarkable 32% surge, attributed to both subscriber growth and pricing adjustments in selected markets.

Viu’s success is further underscored by a 15% increase in advertising revenue and a substantial user base of 62.4m active users by the end of 2023, along with soaring streaming minutes.

Canal+’s enhanced investment in Viu reflects its strategic vision to capitalise on the burgeoning OTT market and tap into Viu’s strong foothold in the Asian and pan-regional streaming landscape, positioning both companies for continued growth and success in the dynamic digital entertainment industry.

Development Alert: uBettina Wethu Cancelled After 3 Seasons On SABC 1, Revived For A Season 4 On e.tv And VIU

A few months ago, it was learnt by the public broadcaster that 7de Laan would end their 26 year run on SABC 2 with the last episode slated for 26 December 2023. Despite being one of the few shows reel in a million viewers SABC can't afford to keep it on the air.

It was also learnt that the public broadcaster that more shows (including ones as popular as 7de Laan) would get the boot. As seen this various media outlets, uBettina Wethu will be ending it's run on SABC 1 with a fourth season slated for e.tv in the coming week.

Based on the Colombian drama Betty Y Soy, uBettina Wethu followed a naïve rural girl who gets a job working for one of Johannesburg's most eligible bachelors. Determined to take charge of her life, she embraces strategic decision-making, self-discovery, and personal growth.

The series became a rating success on SABC 1 but amidst its debut on e.tv, the viewership began to plunge and following e.tv's induction the show is nowhere to be seen on TAMS top 20 likely due to its telecast on SABC 1 which kind of puts the show in a precarious position.

Seeing as the show would depart on SABC 1 and e.tv had spent most of the year rehashing past episodes. Could the fourth season be its last as not a lot of marketing being poured into this show and most consumers would probably think that e.tv is rehashing it for the rest of 2023.

Now that we know that uBettina Wethu was the next program by the public broadcaster to get the boot. Could Takalani Sesame be next as eMedia Investments had scooped it up for their linear platforms during the year and the public broadcaster is reviewing each asset.

Canal+ To Acquire A 26% Stake In Hong Kong Based Streaming Platform VIU

PCCW and Canal+ have announced a strategic partnership through which the French media giant will become a significant minority shareholder in PCCW’s Asian streaming service Viu.

Canal+ will make a staggered investment of $300M in Viu, including an initial investment of $200M, resulting in a 26.1% stake. It also has an option to make a further investment and turn that stake into a controlling 51%.

In a statement, Canal+ talked expansion opportunities and plans to collaborate with Viu on premium production:

During the year, the French company expanded their stake in MultiChoice beyond 30%. This move similar to VIU raises speculation of a possible takeover and should that be the case one has to wonder what would become of Showmax and VIU in South Africa if it's operated by Canal+.

"This new strategic partnership will enable the further growth of Viu, leveraging the global strength and expertise of Canal+ through various initiatives including collaboration on premium productions and content creation, expansion of global market reach for Viu, and continual user experience improvement. The partnership will allow Canal+ to take a major step in developing Asia as its next growth engine.”

Viu is one of Asia’s leading streamers with more than 66 million monthly active users (MAU) and 12 million paid subscribers across Asia, the Middle East and South Africa. The service, which operates a combined AVOD and SVOD model, consistently ranks as the top streamer in terms of MAUs across Southeast Asia and second in terms of subscribers.

It produces a wide range of local-language drama series and lifestyle programming, with a focus on Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, and was a first mover in the acquisition of Korean content. In 2022, Viu reported $250M in revenue, representing growth of 36% year over year.

Maxime Saada, Canal+ Group CEO, said: “Canal+ already has leading market positions in Europe and Africa. We are now looking forward to developing Asia as an additional growth engine for the group. Our investment in Viu is a major step towards achieving this goal. Viu is already a business with scale, with its hybrid AVOD and SVOD business model and focus on local content, it has all the ingredients to deliver superior growth and continue to be a leading service in the region and beyond.

Janice Lee, Viu CEO and PCCW Media Managing Director, said: “When we launched Viu, we had set our sights on creating and transforming our media business into an international play by tapping into larger addressable markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Africa. Having created a robust streaming business, we are excited to have the addition of Canal+ as a strategic investor to further accelerate growth by drawing on Canal+’s global strength in premium productions, content creation and distribution expertise.”

Could VIU Be The Next Streaming Service To Shut Down In South Africa?

Three years ago, South African viewers were introduced to VIU a brand new streaming service and also PCCW's second attempt at in the streaming game following the termination of OnTapTV.

For those who weren't present at the time, the brand failed to give the media specific details on the content viewed on the platform but ramped up partnerships with eMedia Investments and the SABC for some of its content part of which led to its relevancy.

Last year, the brand got into a brawl with eMedia Investments regarding the agreement for various local productions seen on e.tv such as Scandal and Imbewu as eMedia failed to hold their end of the bargain.

According to VIU at the time, consumers were alarmed to see that the content wasn't available on the platform as the e.tv productions had a following for which impacted their subscriber base with the brand set to lose the content to eVOD by 2024.

During the month, SABC viewers were alarmed to see that the public broadcaster recently launched SABC+ is missing several ties as their packaged exclusively by VIU with consumers having to wait until a certain timeframe to get access to the remaining content.

VIU was a bridge between both these parties and as seen now both of them now offer their own OTT platforms which puts the streamer in the very precarious position as most of the consumer base are big fans of the local providers.

Sure, VIU has a lot to offer outside these two with various content from BBC Studios alongside Crime + Investigation from A+E Networks. But is that enough to guarantee success for the platform I honestly doubt it.

South Africa had a various streamers such as A+E Networks' Acorn TV, Cell C's Black, Vodacom's Red and Telkom's TelkomOne streaming service all of which had a similar trait to VIU which includes bundling a lot of third party content and less to no original content - all of which have been dusted.

Now questions amount to how the future of the streamer as they keep sourcing out more and more content kind of like how abovementioned did before closing down.

Reminder: VIU's Contract With eMedia Investments Set To Expire In 2024

Since 2019, VIU an Asian based streaming service has been operating in South Africa and at the time not much was known about the platform as they basked on the existing free-to-air offering from the SABC and e.tv through a contractual agreement.

The platform featured a variety of Indian, Asian and Korean content which by the way match the existing offering on StarSat and Openview deeming it a useful alternative to fans of the content.

Last year, eMedia Investments and VIU got into a legal brawl as eMedia accused the brand of pirating exclusive shows Scandal, Imbewu and Rhythm City to Philosopher which houses several local dramas like Uzalo, Generations and 7de Laan.

 

 

From court's ruling:

"The ineluctable conclusion is that e.tv engineered a contrived cancellation of Vuclip's licensing agreements to gain access to exclusive content, which was exclusively licensed to Vuclip, but which e.tv wished to broadcast on its own platform," the court documents state.

Since the ruling Scandal and Imbewu are no longer available on eVOD and remain exclusive to VIU as Rhythm City was cancelled at the time.

With VIU's contract being valid for another 2 years, the brand may want to look at alternatives or try to build as much relevancy to the market by the means of original content and there's several local studios some of which small which VIU could perhaps funnel their content.

The Current Status Of TV Licence In South Africa And The Rest Of The World + Other Matters

South Africans who watch video streaming services like Netflix or pay-TV services like DStv or StarSat and who don't even watch or use the services of the South African public broadcaster could be forced to pay a SABC TV licence fee like a compulsory "traffic fine" - even if they don't use a TV, the SABC or just watch content on devices like laptops and tablets.

This is the latest plan of the financially struggling South African public broadcaster to prop up its finances, with Pinky Kekana, South Africa's deputy communications minister, who told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Tuesday morning that the SABC wants to broaden the definition of the existing mandatory SABC TV licence that is payable by people with a TV set.

There's about 27 other countries that still do TV licences followed by 25 countries that abolished it and make their revenue through commercial sales, advertising, tax and pay or free-to-air platforms (which is what SABC is proposing). Then there's 11 other countries that never had a TV licence some of them don't have a national broadcaster (e.g. SABC, BBC), some are funded by private companies (e.g. e.tv), some rely on advertising, grants and government funds.

MUST CARRY RULE
The SABC wants the government to remove the must carry clause on their channels since it benefits other platforms as they don't pay a cent for their channels.

SPORTS
SABC wants national sports to be available to them at a very affordable price.

If SABC wants to charge people TV licence they could have added it onto our taxes regardless most people using DStv or OpenView don't watch their channels since they lack redeeming quality. If the government does abolish the must-carry regulation it means all platforms will likely do away with SABC 1-3 or have less SABC channels on their platform.

I know most people don't watch their channels but for the people that rely on their channels, what are the chances that these platforms will indeed do away with SABC entirely. Knowing some providers they're likely to keep only 1 or 2 out of the 3 channels.

Read Also:
- SABC is still planning to launch SABC Education on DStv