The story of the sleek, modern Canal+ begins with municipal tap water. Founded by an imperial decree in 1853, the Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE) spent more than a century as a traditional French utility provider before pivoting aggressively into media in the late 20th century.
In 1983, CGE partnered with advertising agency Havas to launch Canal+, France’s first encrypted premium pay-TV channel. By financing domestic film productions and snapping up premium sports rights, Canal+ quickly built an impenetrable defensive moat.
Realising its domestic limits, Canal+ launched Canal Horizons in 1990, securing a critical first-mover advantage in Francophone Africa. CGE eventually rebranded as Vivendi, where Canal+ served as its cash-generative engine for decades before a 2024 demerger spun it out onto the London Stock Exchange. This independence granted Canal+ the financial muscle to ultimately chase MultiChoice.
MultiChoice is also an offshoot of another industry entirely. It traces its roots to the 1915 founding of print media titan Naspers, which pivoted to television in 1986.
Back then visionary executive Koos Bekker pitched the potential of subscription television, leading to the launch of M-Net as South Africa’s first pay-TV service. M-Net’s explosive success, heavily driven by its SuperSport channel, forced a structural split that formally birthed MultiChoice in 1995.
MultiChoice’s masterstroke was launching Digital Satellite Television (DStv) that same year. Bypassing Africa’s limited terrestrial broadband infrastructure via satellite, DStv established a near-monopoly on premium continental broadcasting.
However, things changed when Naspers struck gold with an early investment in Chinese tech behemoth Tencent. Overshadowed by this tech explosion, the capital-heavy MultiChoice was unbundled and listed independently on the JSE in 2019. Pushed into the unforgiving public market just as global streaming wars escalated, MultiChoice found itself highly vulnerable to Canal+’s historic acquisition.
Peter Takaendesa, chief investment officer at Mergence Investment Managers, says MultiChoice was a well-run pay-TV leader that ran into trouble only due to “very difficult macroeconomic conditions beyond its control and its ambitious strategic pivot to the Showmax expansion space”.
The true test for Canal+ over the next 18 months will be whether its aggressive sales strategy and localised production engine can answer his ultimate question: “Will Canal+ do a better job while facing the same tough operating conditions that got MultiChoice to where it was before the takeover?”
