On 30 April 2026, Showmax switches off for good. No more subscribers, no more renewals, no more Shaka iLembe catch-up at 11pm on a Sunday. If you were watching the slow-motion collapse and wondering whether it was really happening — it is. Canal+, the new owner of MultiChoice, called the service an "expensive failure" after its operating losses ballooned from about $154 million to $291 million in a single year. That is an 88% jump, and nobody signs a chequebook for that kind of bleeding twice.

So the question for South African households is no longer "should I keep Showmax?". It is "what's actually worth paying for now?" — and the answer depends a lot on whether anyone in your house watches rugby.

What's actually happening on 30 April

Here is the timeline in plain English:

  • 31 March 2026 — Showmax stopped accepting new subscribers and stopped renewals. If your subscription auto-renewed before then, you keep watching until it expires.
  • 30 April 2026 — the app goes dark. Even paid-up subscribers lose access on that date or when their current month ends, whichever comes first.
  • 1 May 2026 onwards — select Showmax Originals (Shaka iLembe, The Mommy Club, Empini and the like) move into a dedicated "Showmax" section inside the DStv Stream app.

What is not confirmed to move across is the Hollywood catalogue that Showmax 2.0 was built on in 2024 — the HBO, Warner Bros, Paramount and Peacock content. MultiChoice's announcement is pointedly silent on those licences, which tells you most of what you need to know. If you were paying R99 a month for The Last of Us, the bad news is that you are probably about to pay Amazon or Netflix for it instead. Or pirate it, which is what a lot of South Africans are going to do, and MultiChoice knows that too.

The replacement: DStv Stream prices in 2026

MultiChoice is offering Showmax refugees a sweetheart deal — DStv Stream Compact at R99 per month for twelve months, the same price you were paying for Showmax. It's a retention trick. After the twelve months, the standard pricing kicks in. Here are the real numbers if you are signing up from scratch:

Package (streaming only) Price (2026) What you get
DStv Stream Access R99/month Mzansi Wethu, Channel O, some local films. No SuperSport.
DStv Stream Family R299/month Family entertainment, limited sports.
DStv Stream Compact R299/month (12-month contract) orR399/month (month-to-month) SuperSport PSL, Premiership, some URC.
DStv Stream Compact Plus R549/month UEFA Champions League, NBA, UFC, Showmax Originals.
DStv Stream Premium R929/month The full 20+ SuperSport channel buffet, F1, Premier League.

Canal+ itself has publicly criticised what it calls the "absurd complexity" of DStv's pricing — an awkward thing to say about a product you now own, but accurate. The gap between Compact and Premium is R630 a month, and the only real reason most households cross that gap is one thing.

The rugby trap (and why it still works)

Here is the critical bit nobody wants to say out loud: SuperSport is the entire business model. It is also the single reason DStv can keep charging R929 a month when every other streaming service in the country sits between R79 and R229.

If you want to watch the Springboks, the URC (Stormers, Bulls, Sharks, Lions), the Currie Cup, The Rugby Championship, Six Nations or even Super Rugby Pacific live and legally in South Africa — there is exactly one place to do that: SuperSport, and SuperSport live streams only work inside the DStv app. There is no standalone SuperSport subscription. MultiChoice said in 2025 it was investigating unbundling SuperSport, with a decision expected by the end of its March 2026 financial year. As of this writing, nothing has been announced.

So a household that only wants rugby still has to buy an R549 Compact Plus or, for the full URC and Champions Cup coverage, R929 Premium. That is R11,148 a year. For rugby.

This is the old DStv trick dressed up in streaming clothes: lock the sport to the top-tier package, then let the entertainment side of the business bleed out because they know rugby and football will carry it. It worked for twenty years on satellite. It is still working.

A few workarounds exist, with caveats:

  • The SuperSport app itself (free to download) shows highlights, fixtures and news but redirects you into DStv Stream the moment you try to watch live.
  • Free-to-air SABC Sport occasionally picks up Springbok tests and selected URC matches when SuperSport sub-licenses them. Availability is inconsistent and usually announced late.
  • URC.tv — the league's own streaming service — is geo-blocked in South Africa.

URC.tv: what it actually covers, and what it doesn't

This trips up a lot of people, so it's worth being clear. URC.tv is the United Rugby Championship's official streaming service and it covers only the URC club competition — the Stormers, Bulls, Sharks, Lions, the Irish and Welsh provinces, Scottish sides, Benetton and Zebre. That's it. It doesnot carry Springbok Tests, The Rugby Championship, the Currie Cup, the Champions Cup, Super Rugby Pacific, or the Rugby World Cup. Those are all separate broadcast deals.

In South Africa, URC.tv is geo-blocked because SuperSport holds the exclusive local rights to the competition. Using a VPN to get around that is a grey area — it's not illegal under South African law, but it does breach URC.tv's terms of service, which means they can cancel your account if they catch it. If you still want to try, a paid VPN with South African servers and a few European exits is the usual route. Realistically, between an ISP, a VPN, and the URC.tv subscription itself, you rarely save money versus just buying DStv Compact Plus.

The Springboks in 2026 (and 2027): when and where to watch

If you bought DStv Premium for rugby, here's what you paid for this year:

  • 4 July 2026 — Springboks vs England at Ellis Park (Nations Championship opener)
  • 11 July 2026 — Springboks vs Scotland at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria
  • 18 July 2026 — Springboks vs Wales at Hollywoodbets Kings Park, Durban
  • 22 August, 29 August, 5 September 2026 — a historic three-Test home series against the All Blacks at Ellis Park, Cape Town Stadium and FNB Stadium (a fourth Test is scheduled in Baltimore, USA on 12 September)
  • November 2026 — away Tests against Italy, France and Ireland

Every single one of these is on SuperSport in South Africa. URC.tv doesn't touch them because they aren't URC matches. SABC may pick up the Test against England and one or two others under the free-to-air resale rules, but don't count on it — nothing is confirmed at time of writing.

Looking further ahead, the2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia runs from 1 October to 13 November 2027. South Africa opens against Italy in Adelaide on 3 October, plays Georgia in Brisbane on 10 October and Romania in Perth on 17 October, with the final at Stadium Australia on 13 November. World Rugby typically sells South African rights as a dual package — a paid broadcaster (almost always SuperSport) plus a free-to-air partner for selected matches (historically SABC). Nothing has been announced for 2027 yet, but URC.tv will not be streaming it — it isn't their competition.

If nobody in your house watches live sport, skip DStv entirely. If somebody does — especially rugby — you are MultiChoice's target customer and they know it.

The actual streaming landscape in South Africa, April 2026

This is what is left, with current monthly prices:

Service Price (ZAR/month) What it's good for
Netflix Mobile R59 Phone-only, one screen.
Amazon Prime Video R79 Reacher, The Boys, Fallout, and the full-on cheapest catalogue per rand.
Netflix Basic R99 One screen, 720p.
DStv Stream Access R99 Local-only, no sport.
Apple TV+ R125 Smaller catalogue, very high quality — Severance, Ted Lasso, F1.
Netflix Standard R179 Two screens, 1080p. Most popular tier in SA.
Disney+ R179 (was R109 promo) Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, National Geographic, plus Star for local/edgier content.
Netflix Premium R229 4K, four screens.
DStv Stream Compact R299–R399 Entry-level sport (PSL, some rugby).
DStv Stream Compact Plus R549 UCL, NBA, partial URC, Showmax Originals.
DStv Stream Premium R929 The whole SuperSport stack.

How fast does your fibre need to be?

None of this matters if your line can't keep up. Here are the honest minimums per stream, per device:

  • Standard definition (SD): 3 Mbps
  • HD (1080p) — what most people actually watch: around10 Mbps per stream
  • 4K / Ultra HD (Netflix Premium, Disney+, Apple TV+): 25 Mbps per stream
  • Live sport in HD on DStv Stream or SuperSport: 10 Mbps reliably, with low jitter — sport is less forgiving of dips than a Netflix series

In practice, a household with two or three people streaming at the same time wants at least a25/25 Mbps uncapped fibre line, and 50 Mbps is the sweet spot if anyone is gaming or on video calls while someone else watches rugby in 4K. Compare what's actually available in your area on our streaming services comparison page.

What most households should actually do

After pricing this every way I could, a few honest combinations emerge:

If you don't care about live sport: Netflix Standard (R179) plus Amazon Prime Video (R79) comes to R258. That beats any single DStv Stream tier on catalogue depth and is roughly a third of Compact Plus.

If you want one rugby match a week and general entertainment: DStv Stream Compact (R299 on the 12-month deal) plus Netflix Standard (R179). R478 total. You get PSL, selected URC, local telenovelas and Netflix's global catalogue.

If you are a rugby obsessive: DStv Stream Premium (R929) is the only real option for every URC, Champions Cup, Test and Currie Cup match. Add Amazon Prime (R79) for series and you are at R1,008. There is no cheaper legal path. MultiChoice will happily take your money.

If you were paying R99 for Showmax and are being offered R99 DStv Stream Compact for a year: take it if you want PSL or occasional rugby, but diarise the renewal date. Month 13 jumps to R399 unless you lock a 12-month contract at R299. That is the real reason the offer exists.

The bottom line

Showmax was supposed to be MultiChoice's answer to Netflix. Instead, it leaves behind a very South African streaming market: one expensive gatekeeper that owns the sport everyone cares about, a handful of cheap international services competing for what is left of your entertainment budget, and a lot of households about to discover that R99 a month was never going to last.

If you were hoping the Showmax shutdown would finally force SuperSport to unbundle from DStv and sell rugby on its own for R150 a month — don't hold your breath. The whole reason DStv can still charge R929 is that it hasn't had to. Until that changes, the streaming wars in South Africa are really just the sport wars, and they have one winner.

Compare fibre deals that can actually stream all of this properly at FibreTiger.

Sources and data

Showmax shutdown and DStv migration

DStv Stream pricing

SuperSport unbundling

Netflix, Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+ SA pricing

URC.tv and URC rugby coverage

Springboks 2026 and 2027 fixtures

Rugby World Cup 2027

Streaming bandwidth requirements

Prices confirmed as of 13 April 2026 and may change. Springbok and Rugby World Cup broadcast rights in South Africa had not been formally announced for 2027 at time of writing.