Canal+ in Cameroon: subscribers are asking if the monthly bill is still worth it 📺🇨🇲

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In many Cameroonian living rooms, the same scene plays out every day. The remote passes from hand to hand, channels flick by, and within minutes everyone drifts back to the same few programs. Yet every month, the Canal+ subscription gets renewed. Canal+, the French pay-TV group, sells its channels in packages it calls « bouquets ». Some subscribers find the bill too heavy. Others no longer see the point of many channels in the bundle. A number of them are now asking a blunt question: are we getting our money’s worth?

Renewal time: when families do the math 💸

It’s a little after 8 p.m. at the Kemayo family home in Douala. The TV is on, but nobody seems to be really watching. The mother holds the remote and flips from one channel to the next, pauses for a few seconds, then moves on. « There’s nothing good on TV, » she says, before going back to a channel she already knows.

Still, in this household, the subscription has to be paid every month. And it isn’t just another bill: it joins rent, electricity, Internet, transport, the kids’ school fees and everything else the month demands. So when renewal comes around, some families start counting.

« I used to renew without thinking much. Now I first look at what I actually watched over the past month. The truth is that we pay without even watching a quarter of the channels, » says Lydie Kemayo, a subscriber.

On a plan at 5,000 FCFA (the Central African CFA franc) a month, that’s already 60,000 FCFA a year. Higher-priced plans climb quickly. But what irritates some subscribers isn’t only the amount. It’s the feeling of paying for channels that stay almost entirely unused.

The remote already knows the favorites 📺

In many homes, the script is roughly the same. There are the channels you know by heart and the ones you reach for automatically. The ones the kids demand, the one dad watches for football, the ones mom picks for a series or a movie. And then there’s everything else.

« If you watched my TV for a week, you’d see I always go back to the same channels. During the week we’re out, and when we get home it’s the news and a few documentaries. Not to mention my wife’s series, » says William Mbata, a subscriber.

He knows plenty of other channels are in his bouquet, yet he almost never watches them.

« We’re given lots of boring channels, but do we actually watch them? That’s the question, » he adds.

That remark came up repeatedly among the subscribers we spoke to. The sheer number of channels can impress when you’re choosing a plan, but in daily life, viewing habits stay far narrower.

For some, football still justifies the bill ⚽

In other households, the tone is different. The decoder (the set-top box that receives the satellite signal) is seen as essential. Giving it up is out of the question, because football still brings everyone together. One big match is enough to turn the living room into a small grandstand: commentary flies, phones get passed around, and neighbors sometimes drop by when the fixture is a big one.

« If I cancel Canal+, football is what I’ll miss most. Though I have to admit that lately, at the last World Cup, the bouquet let us down, » says André Nbong, a football fan.

Even so, he admits he doesn’t watch much of his bouquet. « I pay for sport. As for the other channels, I watch them when something catches my eye, » he says.

That’s where the dilemma starts for many subscribers: some content feels essential, while the rest is simply there.

Channels some viewers see no point in 🤔

Then there are those who simply don’t understand why certain channels are offered. They’re part of the bouquet, but almost nobody at home watches them.

« There are channels I don’t even know the name of, even though I’ve been a subscriber for a long time, » says Alain Ndam, a young subscriber.

Another subscriber is blunter:

« Sometimes I channel-surf for ten minutes and end up back on the first channel I was watching. »

So the problem isn’t necessarily a lack of content. It’s the gap between what’s on offer and what viewers actually want to watch.

Build your own bundle: the most common request 🎯

This is the request that came up most in the opinions we gathered. Some subscribers would like to build their bouquet around their habits: sports channels for football fans, kids’ channels for families, movies and series for heavy viewers, African channels for those who want more programming from the continent.

« If someone told me to pick ten or fifteen channels and pay only for those, I’d happily do it. I’d add the channels of the other people in the house, » says Adeline Nguison, a subscriber.

The idea surfaces in different forms. Subscribers want to pay for what they watch, not for what they don’t. What worries them most is the sense that the subscription doesn’t match their daily lives.

Not everyone wants to leave Canal+ 🛋️

Despite the complaints on social media, the criticism and the calculations, some subscribers remain attached to their decoder. There are habits, big matches, weekend movies, shows followed as a family, and kids who know their favorite channels. There are also moments when the whole house gathers around the same screen.

« I complain about the price, yes. But if Canal+ is taken away, I’ll still look for a way to get it back. Cable is very unreliable. Yet with Canal+, if you’ve paid, you get your channels all month with no interruption, » says Patrice Nkou, a subscriber, with a laugh.

That may be the whole contradiction. You can find the subscription expensive and keep paying. You can criticize some channels and keep them in your bouquet. You can spend more time on your phone and still keep a place for the TV in the living room, because it isn’t just a monthly bill. It’s a family habit, a sports appointment, a series followed for weeks, a show the kids wait for, or simply a TV left on in the corner of the room, even when nobody is really watching.

Over to you 💬
Why do you still pay for Canal+? For the programs, or mostly out of habit? Tell us in the comments.