After Showmax: Who controls the future of African film and television?

When the lights go out on Showmax, it will not simply mark the end of a streaming platform. For many people working in South Africa’s film and television industry, it will represent something far bigger: the steady erosion of an ecosystem that once gave local creatives room to experiment, take risks and build careers. The decision to shut down Showmax follows the takeover of MultiChoice by French media giant Canal+, a move that has altered the balance of power in the country’s audiovisual landscape.

For industry figures such as South African Guild of Actors national chairperson Jack Devnarain and veteran media and entertainment journalist Thinus Ferreira, the development is less a sudden shock than the culmination of long-standing structural failures. Taken together, they say, the failures have left the South African film and television sector increasingly dependent on foreign multinationals whose decisions are guided not by loyalty to the country or its creative workforce but by global corporate calculations. For Ferreira, who has spent years covering the broadcasting and streaming industries, the closure of Showmax was not unexpected.

In a corporate environment focused on cost cutting, that kind of investment was unlikely to survive long-term scrutiny, especially after the company fell under the control of Canal+, which has embarked on a sweeping restructuring strategy aimed at reducing costs by €400 million (R7.6 billion) by 2030. But while the closure might make financial sense from a corporate perspective, Ferreira said it represented a significant loss for the continent’s creative economy. Showmax, he noted, functioned as a platform that “needed to be fed with local content”, commissioning a wide range of productions across South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

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Its disappearance removes an important source of funding and opportunity for filmmakers, writers, actors and crew members. And although MultiChoice has emphasised that the shutdown will not lead to retrenchments among its employees, Ferreira said that framing obscured a deeper reality. “The people who work on these shows don’t work for MultiChoice,” he said.

“They’re freelancers — actors, crew members, service providers — who come together to make a production. If that show stops being made, those jobs disappear.”

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