MultiChoice Grows Local Content Budget By 50%

MultiChoice Group, South Africa’s media company, said it invested heavily in creating local content, hiring African talent, and supporting the creative industry in Africa.

This is contained in the financial year 2023, MultiChoice Group released this week. According to the company, MultiChoice spent 50 percent of its general entertainment budget on local content. This achievement is a year ahead of their expected targets. As a result, the company’s local content library has grown to include over 76,000 hours of local programming.

The production of local content also increased by 9 percent year-on-year, creating 6,587 new hours of content. This growth indicates that MultiChoice Group’s investment and commitment to local storytelling have been successful and have resulted in a thriving creative industry.

The African media company also said that its unwavering dedication to telling African stories and its ongoing investment in local content has been a driving force behind its success in a highly competitive sector despite facing some challenging market conditions.

“Our industry has faced numerous challenges in recent times,” says Fhulufhelo Badugela, Chief Executive Officer of MultiChoice Africa. “However, we have risen above these challenges, leveraging our strengths to overcome them, and that is something we take great pride in.”

The report also states that with the FIFA World Cup and popular local content such as Big Brother Naija, the Rest of Africa’s business witnessed substantial growth, adding 1.4 million 90-day active subscribers and reaching over 14 million households across the continent.

Despite liquidity challenges in Nigeria, MultiChoice Africa successfully repatriated cash throughout the year. The company also launched five additional local channels across the continent, including Uganda, Ethiopia, and Ghana, while popular shows continued to achieve record viewership across various platforms.

Furthermore, the MultiChoice Group has partnered with Comcast’s NBC Universal and Sky to drive Showmax’s market leadership in streaming on the continent. This partnership will ensure customers have access to a more diverse range of local and international content, supported by Peacock’s world-class, scalable platform.

In May MultiChoice announced a joint venture called ‘Moment’, which will be offering expanded payment infrastructure across Africa. ‘Moment’ aims to transform the African payments landscape by making digital payments more accessible and reliable for domestic, cross-border and global payments.

“With the investments made over the past year, we are on track to transform from a traditional pay-TV platform to a broader ecosystem underpinned by technology,” said Badugela.