If these two aren't able to reach an agreement, consumers will be missing out on Death By Fame, Still A Mystery and Looney Tunes Cartoons. Unlike Cartoon Network and TNT that are viewed on Canal+ Afrique and Azam TV in other African hits the cuts will have a major impact on Discovery Family.
Since the channels exit on StarSat in 2021, MultiChoice was the only provider within Africa to offer the brand. If these channels were to shut down its very unlikely that another broadcaster would revive Discovery Family.
As MultiChoice outlines that talks between Warner Bros. Discovery are still ongoing as they haven't come into an agreement over the pricing. But as seen with past disputes such as that of A+E Global Media with History and Lifetime it's likely that more channels could exit soon.
Discovery Family could form part of those cuts cause ever since Discovery Science was axed in most parts of Europe. The channel had been leaning it's offering toward Discovery Channel and reruns of older shows making it feel zombified.
If MultiChoice was paying Warner Bros. Discovery half a billion for these 12 channels I'd imagine under the Canal+ regime they likely want to pay less. As MultiChoice has lost close to 3 million DStv subscribers and they've been slashing costs.
Canal+ could opt for a partial renewal where the only thing left of the company would be TLC, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, Cartoonito and CNN. Everything else from Discovery Family, Food Network, Travel Channel and HGTV go dark by 2026.
With the likes of Netflix, MultiChoice should have worked on becoming more flexible rather than bundling all these brands (e.g. Travel Channel) that are likely getting very little notice from subscribers.
Under new management, MultiChoice is probably looking at the performance of these brands to see whether they're viable. For all anyone knows, Food Network, HGTV, Discovery Family and Travel Channel could as well be reduced to just Real Time.
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