Piracy-battered OSN pivoted to streaming with OSN+, then merged it into Anghami

OSN — formed in 2009 from the Orbit and Showtime Arabia merger — was the Middle East's premium satellite pay-TV group, the exclusive regional home of HBO and other Hollywood output. By 2018 it was in a 'perfect storm': card-sharing piracy and the state-backed beoutQ operation, advertising revenue down 30–50% over five years, and OTT rivals. Losses reached roughly $125m, owner KIPCO injected about $60m, closed most sports channels in February 2019 and put OSN up for sale — but no buyer came.

Instead of selling, OSN bet on streaming. It launched OSN+ in March 2022, replacing its old streaming app: a ~$10-a-month premium service positioned as the exclusive MENA home of HBO, with Peacock, Sky Studios and Paramount+ content plus Arabic originals like 'Suits Arabia'. Group chief executive Sangeeta Desai (from September 2021) pushed direct subscriber relationships over telco bundles; by launch, streaming already had more subscribers than satellite ever did at its peak. Joe Kawkabani took over as CEO in April 2022.

The pivot worked: within a year of the rebrand viewership rose more than 25%, and by mid-2023 hours viewed were up 40% over twelve months, with OSN at its highest-ever combined subscriber count after expanding deals with Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and MGM. The satellite business was rebranded OSNtv and made dishless — an internet box, a first for the company. In November 2023 KIPCO's Panther Media Group (OSN) signed a conditional binding agreement to combine OSN+ with Nasdaq-listed music streamer Anghami, injecting up to $50m for a majority stake.

Record combined subscribers, hours viewed up 40% in a year, HBO exclusivity kept, and OSN+ merged into Anghami with up to $50m injected for a majority stake.

Piracy had destroyed the economics of satellite distribution, but not the value of OSN's exclusive studio rights.

Streaming subscribers had already overtaken the DTH peak, showing demand existed on the new rails.

Aggregating HBO, Peacock and Sky at one low price gave a niche global streamers could not match in MENA.

Merging OSN+ with Anghami pooled scale and capital into one regional platform instead of fighting it.

When pirates and streamers break the delivery tech behind your moat, move the moat to content rights: become the regional aggregator studios still need, on the platform customers use.

The Anghami-OSN+ combination was expected to complete in early 2024, leaving OSN Streaming Ltd as Anghami's controlling shareholder and creating a combined MENA streaming platform spanning video and music. By June 2026, OSN Streaming had gone further, tableing a preliminary non-binding proposal to take Anghami private, with a special committee of independent directors formed to evaluate it. KIPCO's once-forsale pay-TV asset had become the region's streaming consolidator.