As South African film and TV industry workers grapple with the consequences of Canal+'s sudden decision Shutter Homegrown Streaming Service There was a question on the lips of everyone present at the JBX market at Showmax, Johannesburg this week.
What next?
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Taken in its entirety, this news did not come as a complete shock. There were some apprehensions ever since the French media giant completed its $2 billion acquisition of South African pay-TV company MultiChoice last year, with the company keeping mum on its post-merger plans and suspicions rife that cost-cutting measures were being taken.
Showmax, a loss-making streamer that was a direct competitor to Canal+'s own SVOD service in Africa, was a logical target. Since relaunching the platform with NBCUniversal in 2024, MultiChoice and its Comcast partner invested $309 million in equity funding into Showmax primarily to boost content creation.
However, in the end, the streamer's aggressive growth and subscriber growth goals came to nothing. Just two months ago, Canal+ CFO Amandine Ferré insisted that the platform's losses were “unacceptable” for her company because of the impact it would have on the streamer's fortunes. The writing was on the wall.
The news has not been easy to digest in the JBX market this week, with one producer admitting he felt “sick” at the announcement and another lamenting that the move effectively “beheaded the only African dreamer.” According to one Johannesburg-based producer, the fact that the news came during the Joburg Film Festival – an event sponsored by MultiChoice – hardly improved the prospects of the move, which felt like “a slap in the face” to African filmmakers, no matter what the outcome for shareholders.
What's next for Canal+'s streaming strategy on the continent is anyone's guess. But as one industry source succinctly put it: “Manufacturers are talking too much nonsense.”
After all, this decision comes two years after Prime Video scaled back its ambitions to become the biggest player on the continent and effectively exited the African market. Netflix says it's committed to the continent – at a glitzy Joburg mixer this week, the streamer's head of African scripted Kay-Ann Williams insisted it's “here to stay” – but the lack of competition will only weaken the hand of African producers.
If the old adage is true that when elephants fight, the grass suffers, the same can be said about content creators in this era of endless mergers, acquisitions and corporate consolidations.
The atmosphere at the JBX Talks conference this week was fun. “Streaming was seen as the great democratizer – especially in Africa,” lamented producer Paul Buys. “Losing Amazon was devastating. Losing Showmax was devastating. We're going to have less and less options locally.” Or, as another South African producer bluntly put it: “Show me the buyer.”
If there was a silver lining in rainy Johannesburg this week, it's that African filmmakers have long prided themselves on being flexible and resourceful. “Every fight is a new fight,” said Neil Brandt, founding partner of Johannesburg-based production outfit Storyscope. “To survive, you have to be agile.”
More than one speaker at the JBX Talks conference invoked the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu as they called on each other to unite around a common purpose. While losing one of the continent's leading commissioners – especially in English-speaking regions – would be a bitter pill to swallow, there were calls for more partnerships, more collaboration, more efforts to unlock cross-border revenue streams in everything from theatrical to free-to-air broadcasting.
There were also expectations that technology would eventually favor the continent. Speaking at the JBX Talks conference, Brandt cited the example of Senegal-born influencer and TikTok superstar Khabi Lame, whose company Step Distinctive was acquired last year for about $1 billion. The producer said, “He is an entrepreneur who understood the new economy and monetized it in a way that it could reach a (global) audience.” “It's an inspiration. A Black-born, homegrown content creator… is a master of narrative and thinks outside the box.”
Should an African creator earn a gold medal with vertical content, it's perhaps a natural iteration of where the technology is headed: A continent with more than a billion mobile phones – which, for most consumers, act as the first and only screen – Africa could be the next untapped market for the microdrama industry, with annual revenues projected to grow to $26 billion by 2030.
Cape Town-based production company Both Worlds, which this week Partnership announced With American outfit Freely Films set to co-produce a series of verticals and films, the bet is building on a distribution strategy based on partnerships with major mobile operators across the continent. In China, which gave rise to the microdrama, the vertical market made dramatically more money last year, said Thierry Cassuto, the company's executive chairman.
“The Chinese wrote the first chapter, so we need to learn that playbook,” Cassuto said. “But we have to put it aside and write our own.”
Viu's country manager in South Africa, Eloise Kelly, said the Asian streaming giant has already begun dubbing Korean microdramas into indigenous South African languages like Zulu as it looks to expand into the African market. “What's the next iteration?” He said. “We need to look at how to personalize it and make it our own for South Africa and Africa. Because I think that's where the opportunity is.”
Unlocking the potential of vertical formats for Africa – or incorporating AI on a large scale into production workflows to eventually level the playing field – would mark a “paradigm shift”, according to Brandt, who called on fellow African filmmakers to take risks and embrace new formats and technologies.
“(Vertical) is a new form of storytelling. If you understand and adopt it, you can get an audience,” he said. “There's a gold mine out there. People always want stories.”
“There are so many places where your story can fit,” said Thandeka Zwana of South Africa's Indigenous Film Distribution. “Adapt. Think different. Expand your horizons. Keep up with the changing world. See how consumers are changing. Because they are not static. You can't tell the same story the same way and expect audiences to keep watching.”
The Joburg Film Festival will run from 3 to 8 March in Johannesburg.
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