Kenyan MultiChoice subscribers could lose access to 12 Warner Bros. Discovery channels from next month as the DStv and GOtv operator’s distribution agreement with the global media giant expires at the end of December.
MultiChoice says its contract with Warner Bros. ends on December 31, and negotiations for renewal have yet to yield an agreement.
“The distribution agreement between MultiChoice and Warner Bros. Discovery is scheduled to end on December 31, 2025. While discussions between the parties continue, no agreement has been reached at this stage,” the Johannesburg-based company said in a notice to South African customers.
“If this remains unchanged, a number of Warner Bros. Discovery channels may no longer be available on DStv from 1 January 2026.”
The affected channels include CNN International, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, TNT Africa, Travel Channel, among others.
MultiChoice Kenya has yet to alert local customers on the matter, and an official could not comment on it pending official communication.
Losing the 12 Warner Bros. channels would significantly reduce MultiChoice’s premium and family entertainment offering in the country as the pay-television firm also navigates dwindling subscriber numbers.
Africa’s pay-TV market has been facing stiff competition from video-on-demand platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Showmax, as well as increasingly popular illegal online streaming platforms.
MultiChoice has faced a mass exodus of subscribers amid costly packages and a tough economic time. Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that more than 84 percent of the active DStv customers in Kenya dropped out in the year to June 30.
The firm had 188,824 active subscribers, down from the 1.19 million it had at the end of June 2024.
MultiChoice increased the prices of its packages by up to Sh500 from November 1, 2024 and further hiked them by up to Sh700 from August.
The company’s subscription revenues in Kenya, when expressed as a share of the total subscription revenues, dipped to 7 percent in the year to March from 8 percent a year earlier.
Multichoice has now turned to package and hardware offers to arrest the falling number, slashing the cost of its decoders by up to Sh349 last month.
