Could Mindset Network Also Go Dark For Consumers In Africa, Here's Why?

Mindset Network (also known as Mindset Learn) is a curriculum based channel catering to Grade 10-12 pupils in the Maths, Sciences and Accounting category. It is also offers content for early childhood development alongside others like MTV Shuga.

As seen these past years, businesses have been hit hard in this economic climate from COVID-19 to the current blackouts the problems just keep escalating so much so that tvplus for those who don't know a magazine company will be ceasing operation from March 17th.

Glow TV, a South African community channel owned by Nismedia which promotes Bollywood culture with reality shows, dramas series and movies joins OnseTV and InPas TV as a list of brands struggling to find their means of survival as they were let go by cable providers.

Another brand which could be joining in this struggle might as well be Mindset Network.

Since inception, Mindset Network had mostly catered to Grade 10-12 pupils with Big School being one of the few attractions for younger audiences and it was not until Pop Primary came along that they had space to also cater for Grade 4-9 pupils.

In the past months or better yet years, Mindset Network appears to have lost sight of reality I don't blame them seeing as they are an NGO but even such organizations are likely to suffer the same outcome as above-mentioned brands which is the case here.

Before Glow TV went off air it was very much repetitive which is the case here for Mindset Network as selected content was actually live with others particularly Pop Primary being rebroadcasts with whatever investment toward actual programming down the drain.

Aside from that, Mindset Network was very interactive so much so that they used their social platforms particularly Facebook as a form of communication with their viewers now that is longer the case as the only known platform had since then been deleted.

I don't want to speculate anything but would it really be shocking if it were to go off air I mean MultiChoice struggles to provide a decent EPG program guide for the channel on DStv and opt to just write the channel name and description.

Of course, this wasn't the first time the first dated back to 2022 and at that time Mindset Network had a bit of life left in itself and now their only reliable social account vanishes at the time the channel on DStv has no schedule to what lesson is currently being broadcast.

Prediction: Mindset Learn To Be Taken Over By The SABC, Rebrands Into SABC School

Prediction: A statement of what you think will happen in future

Mindset is a curriculum based learning channel which caters to Grade 10-12 and includes content from Grade 1-3. Following the demise of Mindset Pop, it kind of caters to Grade 4-9 but just like a certain brand most of their audience aren't home during those times.

Basically, Mindset is meant to help learners improve on their maths, numeracy, science, literacy and accounting. It's basically free at this point as it is managed by a nonprofit organisation and such usually just try to make sure a difference in the economy.

For which this brand was fortunate enough to do for the past decade but you just wished that more areas would be covered. Of course there's a few exceptions such as Creative Arts, Life Orientation and Business Studies as one is general and the other reading.

Anyways, the public broadcaster announced the exit of Telkom to the streaming market for the recently launched SABC+. The brand supplies SABC 1-3, News, Sport and Education alongside selected archived content was locked away in their archives.

Prior to its launch, they were only a linear company which experienced success with SABC 1 and SABC Sport. So much so that the SABC had proposed spinning off one of the two as the other follows a number sequence so yeah.

SABC Education also garnered much relevance even before a 24/7 service was released so why not give it a linear channel. Initially, the channel was meant to to be a partnership with the Department Of Education which currently operates within the Openview platform.

Implying that the 24/7 channel, could have turned out differently and wouldn't entirely be an SABC Encore based channel but sort of a mashup with Mindset which just gives me an idea for another brand, SABC School.

Based of SABC Learning and in partnership with Mindset Learn, the channel will continue to align itself with the current curriculum with Geleza Nathi replacing the Grade 12 lessons and also reruns of Matric Reloaded and Takalani Sesame forming part of the channel.

What Really Happened To Mindset Network's Health Channel?

It was on pilot mode in 2003, The Mindset Health Channel, a partnership between Mindset Network, the National Department of Health and Sentech, provided a multimedia platform, to deliver uplifting health education and promotion on critical health issues, including tuberculosis the HIV and AIDS pandemic, on a mass scale.

The channel, which began broadcasting TV programmes in October 2003, had advanced to Internet datacasting reaching an increasing number of clinics and hospitals. From 48 sites in the pilot phase, Mindset Health had 298 established sites throughout South Africa.

The satellite uplink provided by Sentech allowed datacasting directly to users with information in video, multimedia and print available on demand.

"When patients gather in a clinic they can watch a TV programme in the waiting area, while a healthcare worker independently explores in-depth clinical management material on a PC," says Tricia Hobson, Marketing Manager, Mindset Network. This can be interrupted and returned to at a time convenient for the healthcare worker.

The public broadcast, offering 'infotainment' delivers education and promotion on HIV and AIDS (prevention, management, treatment and care), tuberculosis, other major diseases such as maternal and infant health, and the underlying issues such as gender violence, in multiple languages through, drama, public service announcements, documentaries, interviews and discussions.

"Mindset Health sources high-quality content from a number of our media content partners, including SABC, Soul City, Love Life, Khomanani, Community Health Media Trust and Kagiso Educational Trust," says Hobson. The content is available in five languages - English, SeSotho, isiZulu, isiXhosa and Afrikaans.

Healthcare workers and nurses report that the programmes provide an invaluable resource of up-to-date information which adds enormous value to their counselling and administrative efforts.

The Mindset Health Channel aimed to broadcast to 4 000 public healthcare sites, and hospitals as wall as private clinics, prisons and community centres, educating 97 000 nurses and 36 million South Africans.

To do this will require a variety of project and funding partnerships to support the roll-out as well as to sustain usage among both the patients and the healthcare workers in the public health sector.

"We believe these targets are quite within reach and the satellite technology supporting the Mindset Health Channel has the capacity to deliver quality content to South Africa and beyond," says Pranill Ramchander, Sentech's Portfolio Manager: Corporate Communications.

The afterlife of Mindset Health

In a media enquiry, Mindset Network revealed that a lack of funding led to the termination of the health channel contributing to that was the severed partnership with Department of Health as they had no means of keeping the channel sustainable.

A decade after its termination, the nonprofit organisation partnered up with pay-tv giant MultiChoice for a spinoff to the current Mindset TV which catered to Grade 4-9 and ran throughout the pandemic and went dark in the same year with further content available on the main channel.

Plans For Mindset Pop, People's Weather And Supa TV

Admist the pandemic, MultiChoice partnered up with Mindset to launch a second educational channel to help learners from Grade 4-9 catch-up to their schoolwork while Supabets launched its first linear channel exclusively on OpenView.

People's Weather went from being a 24 hour weather channel to an environmental and lifestyle channel.

Mindset POP has shown remarkable success introduction on DStv and Supa TV has helped viewers win some extra cash and also managed to grow the owner's brand.

According to both suppliers, they're looking into expanding the reach of these channels to more platforms meaning that more learners will get access to the educational material on Mindset POP and more viewers can engage with Supa TV since most of them don't have an OpenView.

People's Weather which was only on DStv has been added onto OpenView recently. If you want nature, documentaries and wildlife then this is your channel. There's even a chance it will pop-up on Starsat and StarTimes.

Mindset POP joins other current educational kids channels in the market such as Mindset, Baby TV, CBeebies, Nick Jr, Disney Junior, JimJam, Da Vinci Kids, PBS Kids, SABC Education, DBE TV, Zoomoo, CBeebies.

Supa TV joins Tellytrack as the only few betting channels within the market.

People's Weather is the only accessible channel within the market other channels like Curiosity Channel, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, Da Vinci Kids, Wild Earth and Discovery Channel require you to pay monthly.

Update: Mindset Pop On DStv And DBE Learning On OpenView

Earlier in the year, Covid19 hit South African shores forcing schools and businesses to shut down. During that time, service providers were trying to source out content that was educating and entertaining to viewers.

MultiChoice and Mindset teamed up to launch a spinoff pop-up channel catered to Grade 4-9 with a mix of Grade 1-3 called Mindset Pop (also known as Mindset's Pop Primary) in South Africa and the rest of Africa on channel 317.

eMedia Investments teamed up with the Department of Education to launch DBE Learning which caters Grade 10-12 with additional subjects to help out the current Mindset channel. It is currently occupies channel 122.

Both channels were available from 1st April. Through media outlets, DBE Learning as stated would be available until the end of September while Mindset Pop would be available until 10 December according to MultiChoice Africa earlier in the year.

Now DBE Learning is still running on the OpenView despite reaching its cutoff date so it's possible that there are no plans to do away with the channel. It first launched as a channel for Grade 10-12 now they added material for Grade 1-3 meaning it's no different to Mindset.

Mindset Pop has been dominating the DStv platform and is highly recommended through schools and educational forums across Africa. Several outlets still list it as a pop-up channel but no cutoff date was actually confirmed for South Africa (only ROA) and through an enquiry their customer care listed it as a permanent channel for customers and this very likely includes the rest of Africa.

Schools are now reopened under several conditions and children in most schools get time off meaning they won't able to wrapup their academics but with these channels put in place they'll help them catch-up.

Read Also:
- Discovery will be streamlining their entertainment question remains on how this will effect DStv and StarTimes
- 2 channels left to launch on DStv
- SIC International will no longer be available on DStv
- OpenView is opting for streaming
- SABC is still planning to launch SABC Education on DStv and Starsat
- Alternatives for Disney XD
- Channels that never materialized on DStv
- OpenView might be rolling out Limpopo TV soon with plans for the channel to rollout on Starsat and DStv

Admist The Coronavirus Outbreak, Mindset Pop-Up Channel Mindset Pop

Ever since the launch of Mindset second TV channel, the channel hasn't stopped trending across social media. This is first time in a long while that a channel trends at such an alarming pace.

With this in mind it's possible that MultiChoice and Mindset will make it permanent considering the huge impact it made to the community compared to the WWE channel.

Mindset Pop (Pop Primary) puts its focus on Grade R to 9 while Mindset also caters for that market but overtime their main focus was on Grade 10-12 with a little bit of Grade R-3, 8 and 9 something which was unnoticeable for a while now on the channel which in turn makes this one useful.

At launch the channel was said to broadcast 15 hours a day and now broadcasts an extra hour. The channel was at first launched with a large lineup of material that was still accessible on Mindset overtime that changed.

The one thing that remained was the constant inaccuracies from Mindset TV like just the other day Grade 8 Natural Science was scheduled to air at 21:00 instead it was Mathematics I don't see that ever getting fixed.

The other thing has to be the branding for this channel even though it is labelled as Mindset Pop through its ads they label it as Pop Primary with the actual channel logo is labelled as Mindset without the Pop. Yes, the name Pop is short for pop-up channel. If you visit this channel it also recycles bumpers and indents from the regular Mindset channel so there's no telling if they ever plan to update this in order to try and seperate the two.

Regardless the channel is doing well you may see some negative reviews but only due to the schedule and lack of subjects either way the channel is running smoothly. If MultiChoice and Mindset decide to keep it open there's a high chance it won't be available 24/7 like your regular Mindset channel due to the strong resemblance between these channels.

Mindset Network Launches New Primary School Pop-Up Channel

With lockdown for Covid-19 being the uppermost thought in everyone’s mind Multichoice and Mindset Network, launched by Nelson Mandela in 2003, is due to launch a channel dedicated to Primary School learners on 1 April 2020. Mindset Pop will feature educational programming covering the entire GET (Primary School) phase, including ECD, Grades 1 to 3 but with a focus on the Grade 4 – 9 curriculum.

Even though you are still on holiday we want you to be prepared when schools re-open. Mindset PoP will deliver live lessons daily with 6 fresh hours every day. We will bring you Literacy and Numeracy as well as Maths, Natural Sciences, English, Life Orientation, Art and Physical Education activities. A website will be available for downloading worksheets and information sheets that you can work through with our expert teachers. Lessons will come live from our studios where our expert teachers will unpack the concepts you need to understand as well as point you to additional resources. Lessons are based on the South African CAPS curriculum but are also aligned to the Cambridge curriculum.

Mindset’s CEO, Dylan Green says: “We are very relieved to be working with Multichoice to spread academic excellence during the lockdown. Remember that while we often focus on matric the key concepts are taught in the Foundation Phase. We are looking forward to bringing a whole new and exciting world of learning to DStv subscribers everywhere.”

Mindset PoP will be available to all subscribers across the DStv platforms in South Africa and Africa. Tune into channel 317 to find out more about this fantastic education channel!

This might be the same test channel coming to OpenView channel 122 and possibly StarSat for now there's no confirmation about it as this press release only has to do with MultiChoice.

After 17 Years, Mindset Is Getting A Spin-off Channel

Mindset is an digital satellite television free-to air channel launched in 2003 to help educate and improve health in South Africa, uplift and empower communities with various Educational and Health initiatives and interventions is getting a second TV channel.

Pop Primary, the channel is skewed towards Grade 1-7 and just like Mindset will carry educational content. No details about the channel have been unveiled on the package and launch but judging by the founder it could be on every single platform in South Africa and possibly the rest of Africa.

The organisation that handles Mindset works with Government, International Donors and blue-chip corporates to deliver impactful, sustainable and practical change to the developmental challenges that communities face. It develops, sources, distributes and uses digital content. Its multimedia content is distributed via broadcast television, IP based satellite datacast, the web, distributable media (hard drives, DVDs and CDs) and mobile networks.

This comes admist the time coronavirus has mismanaged most of our lives along with a lot of companies that had to postpone major events and schools that had to close earlier.

Within those holidays MultiChoice supplied viewers with free channels on their DStv Now service and added two further channels along with promotional channels to the DStv platform. While StarSat offered viewers free channels through their app.

Since the school holidays parents have been urging platforms to get more educational channels since they'll be joining their kids on lockdown. So far MultiChoice has PBS Kids, Da Vinci Kids and Mindset followed by StarSat with only the last two from DStv and OpenView being Mindset.

Global Citizens has been urging parents to get SABC and DStv to dedicate a channel for educational content. Now parents can be put at ease with this upcoming channel.

More details about the channel will be available soon.