As some people have noticed in the last months, Canal+ has been cleaning house at MultiChoice after completing it's buyout in 2025. This included the discontinuation of Showmax and reduction in costs for its decoders.
Canal+ had mentioned that MultiChoice charges way too much for its services in Anglophone markets compared to them in Francophone Africa. This is what's causing people to flee their offering with plans underway to rectify this error.
MultiChoice currently offers 17 different packages from DStv Premium to Easyview with various Add-ons from Explora Ultra and AddMovies. Not to mention, there is GOtv which we might discuss later
Canal+ made it clear that this is not what consumers want and this many offerings drives a lot of confusion. They pivoting and looking to offer less brands, more simplicity, cheaper packages and decoders.
DStv Premium in it's current form could be a goner amidst this restructure I don't think it will die down like Compact+ but in terms of pricing and content that's likely to change. Same goes for its lower entry packages such as DStv Family and Easyview.
Canal+ wants to ensure that MultiChoice remains competitive in the long run and view Africa as the next destination to help in those endeavours. This would include trying to make DStv packages attractive for which DStv Easyview is not.
DStv Easyview serves as the cheapest offering amongst MultiChoice's services which carries mainly provincial and news channels with other content in the mix. This would include SABC 1-3, Soweto TV, SABC News, BBC UKTV and Real Time.
In other MultiChoice markets, this offering is known as DStv Lite which has seen more press and enhancements with SuperSport Variety 4, Mzansi Bioskop, Telemundo and BBC Lifestyle. MultiChoice SA has been fallen behind with other markets here.
We don't know what the final DStv product will look like but if Canal+ sees the audience numbers on Easyview are low - they might discontinue it. MultiChoice has never revealed how many people use Easyview as they usually liked grouping figures.
DStv Easyview numbers went hand in hand with Access and Family, and while they didn't divulge numbers it's clear to some that it has the least subscribers amongst packages.
MultiChoice often treats DStv Easyview like it's failed GOtv pay-tv venture in South Africa. They don't really market the offering as much as other countries do with DStv Lite or curate content exclusively for those audiences.
DStv Access consumers got KykNET Lekker and Moja 9.9. which by all means are not carried on other packages while Easyview inherited Magic Showcase which is also seen on Access.
If Canal+ is able to reverse DStv's growth projection, the question would have to be whether they'd still want something like Easyview. It currently competes with Openview which has two sports channels, three Bollywood channels and only lacking in local news.
Companies like MultiChoice or at least the ones I've seen in other African markets or even MultiChoice Africa don't really offer such package. The cheapest package being DStv Lite costs KSh 750 (R97.50) in Kenya while Access is KSh 1,450 (R188.50).
In some MultiChoice markets either one serves as the cheaper alternative.
