DStv cuts Kenya subscription prices

DStv has cut its subscription prices in Kenya by up to KES 4,400. The company’s new lineup, which takes effect on November 5, includes four packages: Starter, Select, Sports, and Ultimate, with monthly prices ranging from KES 750 to KES 7,300.

New Packages Introduced

The changes bring football to the entry-level package and introduce a cheaper sports tier and a Swahili sports channel. The price of the top package has been cut by almost 40%.

The Starter package costs KES 750 per month and includes La Liga football and a Match of the Week, in addition to over 116 channels covering Kenyan programming, telenovelas, Zee World, and children’s content.

This package appears to be aimed at households that dropped DStv due to the combined cost of a decoder and monthly subscription.

The Select package, priced at KES 1,500, is the family and lifestyle tier, with news, movies, series, and Serie A across over 149 channels.

The Sports package, at KES 3,000, includes the English Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League, as well as Studio Universal, ESPN 2, and BBC Brit, across over 159 channels.

It also debuts SuperSport Swahili, the first Swahili channel under the SuperSport brand, which speaks to viewers in their native language.

The Ultimate package, at KES 7,300, covers Formula 1, MotoGP, rugby, tennis, and golf across over 180 channels, representing a saving of roughly KES 4,400 per month compared to the previous Premium package.

A summary of the new packages is as follows:

Starter: 116+ channels, KES 750 per month
Select: 149+ channels, KES 1,500 per month
Sports: 159+ channels, KES 3,000 per month
Ultimate: 180+ channels, KES 7,300 per month

Market Shifts and Challenges

The changes come after DStv’s decoder base in Kenya fell from 270,503 subscribers at the end of 2025 to 248,053 by the end of March, an 8.3% drop.

Despite a subsequent increase to 259,047 subscriptions, the wider market still slipped 1.8% to 1.55 million, with viewers drifting to internet-based TV and rising set-top box prices making new sign-ups harder.

The new packages seem to address both the cost of hardware and the desire for football content, offering a cheaper way into a hardware purchase that DStv cannot easily make cheaper.

Change of Ownership Impact

Behind the pricing sits a change of owner, with Canal+ taking effective control of MultiChoice in September 2025 and moving SuperSport’s rights decisions to Paris.

Canal+ has also been pushing for a simpler, repeatable product structure across its more than 40 million subscribers in nearly 70 countries.

Kenya’s tier names echo the five-tier streaming lineup reported for South Africa ahead of its September 17 launch.

The football at the center of the two middle packages is secure for now, with SuperSport holding Premier League rights across Africa until 2028 and Champions League rights through 2027.

A comparison of the new packages with their old equivalents shows the following changes:

Starter: no change, still KES 750 per month
Select: previously Access at KES 1,450, now KES 1,500, and previously Family at KES 2,250, now KES 1,500
Sports: previously Compact at KES 4,200, now KES 3,000, and previously Compact Plus at KES 7,300, now KES 3,000
Ultimate: previously Premium at KES 11,700, now KES 7,300

Moving the costliest and narrowest properties, such as rugby and motorsport, into the top tier appears to keep the cheaper packages lighter to run, at a time when Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are pushing deeper into live sport across Africa.