In 2020, the public broadcaster gave SABC Education a linear channel after its inception in 1996 which was 26 years ago. The channel seeks to help youth with their academics while as improving the lives of fellow South Africans.
Some of the programming featured on the channel mainly reruns from SABC 1-3 were kid and teen based shows like Words And Numbers, Thabang Thabong, Geleza Nathi and Hectic Nine-9 while older audiences got Uzalo, 50/50, Speak Out and Musiek Roulette.
In an interview on SABC News with the general manager of the SABC, he was able to confirm that the public broadcaster was in talks with the likes of MultiChoice's DStv and ODM's StarSat to reserve some space for the educational channel.
MultiChoice added SABC Education to the iPlate section (still visible with no EPG) while StarSat included it on their website (which has since then been removed) and this was two years ago and aside from DTT you can view the channel on TelkomOne.
SABC Education was created amidst the pandemic and was part of the SABC's DTT plan. It was believed that the channel would rollout on these two platforms within that period as schools were closed for most of the semester but that wasn't the case.
MultiChoice went ahead and included Mindset Pop but no signs of SABC Education and it even got more suspicious when StarSat also didn't include the channel in their bouquet of channels and if there's one thing these two have in common is the public broadcaster.
The public broadcaster is known for delaying as they promised two entertainment channels in the middle of last year on Openview and more than a year has passed since consumers have been waiting so it lead to suspicion that the same outcome was awaiting pay-tv consumers.
MultiChoice did mention in court by the Competition Tribunal that they'd be launching 3 new SABC channels and I'm not sure whose bright idea it was to delay SABC Education seeing as its TelkomOne which will likely get more SABC channels.
Perhaps SABC is rolling out these channels in phases or pay-tv providers opt to bundle SABC Education once the SABC finally launch their streaming service and additional channels which would carry a lot of archived material.
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