At the end of every month, Kenyan households run an audit nobody talks about openly. School fees. Rent. Transport. Data bundles. And somewhere on that list, a question that would have seemed odd a decade ago: is this subscription still worth it?
The numbers suggest that more households are questioning whether the subscription still earns its place in the monthly budget. Kenya’s pay-TV market shed 85,177 active subscriptions in the first three months of this year alone, a 5.1% drop in a single quarter, according to the Communications Authority. The decline touched almost every operator.
That split matters. It means this isn’t simply a story about pay-TV losing to streaming, or Kenyans falling out of love with television. It’s a story about which providers still feel worth paying for, and which don’t. The problem was never really about the number of channels on offer. It is about the relationship between price, perceived value, choice and content. Consumers are weighing all four when deciding whether a subscription still makes sense for their household. For businesses, that means responding to changing expectations cannot be reduced to a pricing decision or simply adding more to an existing package. The opportunity is to look at the proposition as a whole.
Value: price is not the whole story
The easy assumption is that people are leaving because pay-TV has become too expensive, while cheaper alternatives have won on price alone. Price is certainly part of the equation. But it does not tell the whole story. Value is not simply a number on an invoice. It is the comparison a household makes each month between what it pays and what it gets to enjoy.
A subscription can be competitively priced and still feel less valuable if the content or features do not match what a household actually wants. Equally, a subscription can justify its price when customers can clearly see the relevance in what they are receiving. That is why the conversation around value is becoming more nuanced. Consumers are not simply looking for the lowest possible price. They want to feel that their subscription reflects how they watch, what they enjoy and what matters to their household.
The opportunity for providers, then, is to make that connection clearer: give customers the flexibility to choose, make the value of each proposition easy to understand, and ensure that the content they care about is within reach.
Choice: more choice should mean more relevance
The industry’s response to changing consumer expectations should not be to take choice away. If anything, consumers want more control over what they pay for and how they use their subscriptions. The challenge is making that choice meaningful.
For a household that primarily wants local entertainment and news, value may look very different from that of a household whose viewing revolves around international sport. A parent may prioritise children’s programming, while another household may be willing to pay more for live football or premium entertainment. The point is not that consumers want fewer options. It is that they want options that make sense for the way they actually live.
That puts a different responsibility on businesses. Choice should make it easier for customers to find the proposition that fits their needs. A well-designed proposition can give consumers room to choose while making those choices easier to understand. And in a market where household budgets are under pressure, that clarity matters almost as much as the price itself.
Content: still at the centre of value
Content remains one of the strongest reasons people choose to pay for entertainment. A household may tolerate a higher monthly bill when a subscription gives it something it cannot easily replace elsewhere; a major sporting event, a local production everyone is talking about, or programming that serves the whole family. What has changed is not the importance of content, but the way consumers assess it.
With more platforms competing for their attention, viewers are increasingly asking whether the content they care about is available at a price that works for them, and whether the subscription gives them enough flexibility to make that choice worthwhile. That makes content and value inseparable.
The proposition has to change
Put the three together, and today’s viewer isn’t really choosing between value, choice and content. They’re quietly demanding more of all three at once; more value for every shilling spent, more choice that’s easy rather than exhausting to navigate, more content that reflects their lives rather than just a bigger catalogue.
MultiChoice, three decades into DStv’s presence in the market, is now testing exactly that adjustment at scale. The company has begun rolling out what it calls “DStv Expect More,” a brand-wide reset built around giving subscribers greater choice, flexibility and value, with offerings tailored to different kinds of viewers, movie lovers, series fans, sports households and families ; rather than one lineup meant to fit everyone.
In Kenya, that has meant consolidating six package tiers into a clearer set of around four, with pricing moving down. The reset comes under new ownership: French media group Canal+, which completed its takeover of MultiChoice in September 2025. The package overhaul is therefore a direct test of the value question this piece opened with: whether fewer, clearer choices and lower entry prices can make the service more relevant to households that have become increasingly deliberate about what they pay for.
The bigger shift may be that the Kenyan consumer has become more deliberate about what earns that spending. That distinction matters. Economic pressure may ease or intensify. Inflation will move. Household priorities will change. But the habit of asking what a product or service is really worth is unlikely to disappear. For businesses, that means value cannot be treated as a temporary response to difficult economic conditions. It has to remain part of the conversation, in how products are designed, how prices are set, how choices are presented and how customers experience them.
Ultimately, consumers are not simply looking for the cheapest option. They are looking for something that makes sense for them. And when a business can consistently make that case, it gives the customer a reason to stay.
Mr Nzola Mirannda is Chief Executive Officer at MultiChoice Kenya, a CANAL+ company.
