South African pay television service DStv lost 84% of its subscribers in Kenya in the year to June 2025, as Kenyans turned away from the service amid rising living costs, according to the communications regulator’s data.
Owned by MultiChoice, DStv is one of Africa’s most widely used providers of global news and entertainment. But several recent price increases introduced to balance cost and profitability goals have seen its Kenya subscriptions drop from nearly 1.2 million in June last year to fewer than 200,000 this month, the largest decline in customers of any subscription-based service in the country.
DStv’s subscriber crash is a common thread across satellite and terrestrial television broadcasters in Kenya: Chinese broadcaster StarTimes lost 46% of its viewers over the past year.