The Fall of DSTV
DSTV raised its subscription prices three times in two years.
Then it lost 1.4 million Nigerian subscribers in those same two years.
Then it slashed its decoder price by 50% to beg those subscribers to come back.
Some people will call it business strategy but this is a company eating itself alive and wondering why it is hungry.
The numbers are brutal.
MultiChoice lost 2.8 million active subscribers across Africa over two financial years. 1.2 million in 2025 alone. An 8% year on year decline. 
Nigeria accounted for 77% of subscriber losses across all of MultiChoice’s African operations outside South Africa. The Rest of Africa base collapsed from 9.3 million in 2023 to 7.5 million in 2025. 
Nigeria did not just leave DSTV, they buried it and the content is leaving with the subscribers.
BET Africa and MTV Base shut down January 2026. CBS Reality and CBS Justice went December 2025. CNN International, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, TNT Africa, Food Network and several others were all at risk of removal. 
A platform charging premium prices while removing the channels people subscribed for is not a product anymore but a subscription to disappointment.
DSTV built its Nigerian dominance on a monopoly with no serious competition for decades. So it did what every monopoly does when it feels untouchable. It raised prices whenever it wanted, reduced value whenever it could, and treated Nigerian subscribers like they had no alternative.
Then Netflix arrived. Then YouTube got faster. Then data became more accessible. Then the naira collapsed and Nigerians had to choose between DSTV and eating.
Omo we chose eating.
MultiChoice responded by cutting decoder prices from N20,000 to N10,000 and launching a promotional campaign called “We Got You”.
“We Got You” from the same company that raised your subscription three times in 24 months, removed your favourite channels, and treated your complaints like background noise.
They did not get you, they lost you and now they are running after you with a discount like an ex who only calls when they realise you moved on.
DSTV is not falling because of Netflix or the economy.
It is falling because it spent twenty years treating Nigerian consumers with contempt and assumed loyalty was the same thing as having no choice.
Nigerians finally got a choice but not MultiChoice