Kenya’s pay-TV industry faces significant subscriber declines as streaming services increase their market share.
The most recent sector statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya show that traditional pay-TV in the nation is rapidly declining, with DStv and GOtv losing a combined 3.4 million subscribers in the last 12 months.
Subscriptions to DStv had dropped to just 188,824 as of June 2025, an 84.2 per cent decrease from the nearly 1.2 million that existed a year earlier. Even worse was GOtv, which saw a decline of 88.7 per cent during the year to 314,520 active subscribers, from 2.79 million in June 2024.
Kenya’s broader pay-TV market experienced a steep drop
Additionally, the pay-TV market as a whole is contracting. In June 2025, there were 1.47 million active subscriptions, down 76.9% year over year from over 6.3 million the year before.
According to the Communications Authority, a new methodology that only counts “active subscriptions”—those that have generated revenue in the last ninety days—instead of cumulative registered accounts, is partially to blame for the steep drop.
Despite this adjustment, the magnitude of the losses indicates a significant structural change in consumer preferences.
The contribution of streaming services to the decline in MultiChoice subscribers
According to analysts, streaming services like Netflix, Showmax, and YouTube are becoming more and more popular because they provide flexible, on-demand viewing at affordable costs.
Together with Kenya’s growing mobile broadband penetration rate, which currently accounts for 78.2 per cent of all data subscriptions, customers are choosing digital alternatives over cord-cutting.
Challenge for MultiChoice
The challenge is clear for industry heavyweights like MultiChoice, which owns both DStv and GOtv: adjust to a younger, mobile-first audience that is less willing to pay for inflexible channel bundles.
The downturn in Kenya is consistent with broader regional patterns in Africa, where pay-TV providers are facing increasing pressure to update their business plans.
According to the data, Kenya’s pay-TV heyday may be coming to an end, and streaming will continue to hold a strong hold on the entertainment industry.