On Friday, November 22, 2024, Marc Jury, CEO of Showmax and the South African arm of MultiChoice, announced his resignation effective March 2025. Byron du Pleiss who is currently the group deputy chief financial officer (Deputy CFO) will take charge from April 1, 2025.
Jury has been with the company for over ten years. Formerly, he was the CEO of SuperSport, the sports and entertainment broadcast channel owned and operated by the giant pay-TV company, between 2020 and 2023.
In his role at SuperSport, Jury expanded the broadcasting rights for SuperSport to include the local South African sports league, as well as the CAF champions league on DStv which brings in millions of views yearly.
When the payTV faced monopoly accusations in Kenya in 2020, Jury was responsible for maintaining partnerships with the English premiership to help SuperSport keep its market leader status in sports broadcasting.
As Showmax’s CEO—a position he took over in September 2023 after Yolisa Phahle resigned—his insistence on prioritising local content production put Showmax on the map. In H1 2024, MultiChoice Group invested R1.6 billion ($88 million) into Showmax.
By the end of 2023, Showmax was trailing as a close second behind only Netflix (1.2 million subscribers) in the South African streaming market with 937,000 subscribers.
However, Showmax has since relinquished that position to third and is now in close competition with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video for the number one spot as of Q2 2024, according to data from JustWatch.
Yet, in H1 2024, the local streaming service grew its active subscriber base by 50% and topped subscriber watch hours. MultiChoice Group in the last half-year results, announced its plan to continue investing in Showmax, describing the service as being in its “peak investment cycle.”
Jury will leave Showmax and MultiChoice South Africa to pursue other interests in sports business. The handover period for du Pleiss will begin on December 1, 2024 where Jury will closely mentor his successor in his new role before resigning in March 2025.
