JOHANNESBURG, Nov 12 (Reuters) - South African pay

television company MultiChoice Group reported a 99%

fall in half-year profit on Tuesday and described the operating

environment as "extremely hostile".

The owner of DStv, whose pay-TV business operates across 50

countries in sub-Saharan Africa, said its performance was marred

by weaker local currencies and constrained consumer spending

particularly in Nigeria and extreme power disruptions in Zambia.

Multichoice said its adjusted core headline earnings per

share - its measure of the underlying performance - fell to 2

cents per share for the six months ended Sept. 30, down from 356

cents per share a year earlier.

Overall group revenue at Multichoice fell by 10% to 25.4

billion rand ($1.41 billion) on a reported basis but grew by 4%

on an organic basis, which excludes the impact of foreign

exchange effects and mergers and acquisitions.

Multichoice said subscriptions fell by 5% and 15%

respectively in its South African and Rest of Africa operations.

It said profit was further hit by incremental investments in

streaming platform Showmax, which Multichoice is prioritising to

fight off competition from streaming giants Netflix ( NFLX ),

Amazon ( AMZN ) and Disney ( DIS ).

"Stripping out Showmax, the group would have seen reported

trading profit increase by 28% on an organic basis," said

Multichoice, whose shares were down 0.3% at 1212 GMT.