© Reuters. Small toy figures with laptops and smartphones are seen in entrance of displayed Comcast emblem, on this illustration taken December 5, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -Africa’s greatest pay TV firm, MultiChoice Group, mentioned on Thursday it had entered into an settlement with U.S.-based media conglomerate Comcast (NASDAQ:) to create a pan-Africa video streaming platform.
The brand new streaming service, which can be constructed on MultiChoice’s streaming platform Showmax, can be 70% owned by the corporate, it mentioned.
The remaining 30% can be owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal, it added.
Whereas MultiChoice has the most important market share in pay TV in Africa, it has been struggling to penetrate deeper with Showmax attributable to competitors from Netflix (NASDAQ:) , Amazon (NASDAQ:)’s streaming service and Disney .
With the streaming firms now coaching their weapons on sports activities rights in Africa, MultiChoice is being threatened in a market wherein it has been a frontrunner.
“That is an acceptable time to step up its ambition and funding within the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) /over-the-top (OTT) section,” it mentioned.
The brand new streaming service will mix MultiChoice’s accelerating funding in native content material with an intensive pipeline of worldwide content material licensed from NBCUniversal and Sky, the corporate mentioned.
This can be complemented by third-party content material from HBO, Warner Brothers Worldwide, Sony (NYSE:) and others, in addition to reside English Premier League soccer, the corporate mentioned.
