MTN Bets On Content Gatekeeping As It Launches One TV Across Africa
MTN is repositioning itself from a telecom infrastructure provider into a content gatekeeper, as Africa’s streaming market shifts toward platforms that control not just access, but payment systems and audience relationships.
MTN Group has launched MTN One TV, a new entertainment offering that combines live television, local storytelling, international programming, and flexible viewing models across its African markets. The move places MTN at the centre of a broader contest over distribution and payment infrastructure that is increasingly defining Africa’s streaming landscape.
Chomba Victoria Mkasanga, founder of AFRO Magazine, described MTN One TV as more than just another platform entering a competitive market, calling it part of a broader shift in how African companies approach content ownership, distribution, and digital ecosystems. She also pointed to MTN’s entry into streaming as a sign of structural change in how content is financed and accessed across the continent, noting that mobile-first distribution and bundling with connectivity could alter how African audiences reach content, after years of having to fit into the priorities of global platforms.
According to MTN, One TV will combine free-to-view, advertising-supported, pay-per-view, and subscription models depending on market conditions, with customers able to pay using airtime and mobile money in selected markets. Selorm Adadevoh, MTN Group’s Chief Commercial, Strategy, and Transformation Officer, said entertainment is increasingly becoming an important gateway to digital participation, adding that the company is leaning on its connectivity and fintech infrastructure to widen access to content while backing Africa’s creative economy.
MTN’s entry comes shortly after MultiChoice’s Showmax exited the standalone streaming market, leaving a gap in a sector already facing pressure from global and regional rivals. Even so, MTN faces stiff competition: Amazon expanded its Prime Video footprint in South Africa in June 2026, bundling entertainment with delivery, gaming, and retail perks, while Netflix has focused on deepening its production footprint, naming 14 young South Africans to its ScreenCraft Pathways programme the same month — a 12-month placement initiative built with local film commissions and production houses.
MTN’s scale gives it a distinct advantage in this contest. The company counts more than 307 million subscribers across 16 African markets, a distribution footprint that few entertainment rivals can match. That scale underpins the logic behind One TV, which leans on advertising, pay-per-view, and telecom bundling rather than subscriptions alone — a model tied directly to how Africans actually pay for digital services.
Credit card penetration remains limited across the continent, reshaping how subscription platforms can scale. Data compiled from Onafriq and African payments industry reporting shows credit cards account for roughly 3% of transactions in Africa and debit cards about 18%, compared with a global average of around 51%. Mobile money has filled that gap instead, with the Boston Consulting Group estimating that Africa accounts for roughly 74% of global mobile money activity. By building One TV around mobile money, prepaid systems, and telecom-bundled billing, MTN is positioning itself to meet African consumption patterns rather than depend on card-led subscription models that have limited reach on the continent.
Beyond payments, MTN’s move also taps into ongoing questions about who African streaming content is ultimately produced for. Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, an assistant professor of communication at Cornell University, has argued that global platforms tend to prioritise cosmopolitan audiences over African ones, with market incentives shaping which stories get visibility and investment. That tension has fed a parallel trend of Nigerian filmmakers releasing feature-length productions directly on YouTube, bypassing cinemas and subscription platforms altogether, a sign that large audiences can be reached without traditional gatekeepers, MTN included.
The overall result is a streaming market that is fragmenting rather than consolidating around any single player. Across the continent, excluding Mediterranean countries, streaming is expanding alongside pay TV rather than displacing it. According to 3Vision’s Video Markets Tracker, streaming revenue is projected to reach US$2.2 billion by 2030, while pay TV remains the larger segment at US$5.9 billion over the same period, with pay TV expected to reach 56.4 million subscribers compared to 10.7 million SVOD subscribers, the market MTN’s One TV is now entering.
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