As some of you already know the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been going through a ruff patch for nearly a decade. From being the dominant player in the free-to-air market into a debt flooded corporation.
Before that whole mess came into affect both SABC and e.tv plotted to launch their own STB which included growing the number of FTA channels while SABC decided to wait for digital migration to take effect, e.tv on the other hand went ahead and launched their STB becoming an even more dominant player in the market.
SABC made the mistake of waiting, part of that may have to do with the whole debate regarding the encryption of the STBs. Even if this platform were to arrive in 2020 it would be very difficult for them to make a huge impact if they want TV licence holders and the fact that OpenView has lured potential customers with the last option being streaming services like Showmax and Netflix makes it kind of difficult.
The channels SABC plotted to have were 2 regional type channels, a sports channel, a movie channel and education channel with majority of those plans scrapped for a sports channel along with language based channels which also got scrapped for sports yet again, education returns then you have a health channel again, a parliamentary channel and a history channel. So far SABC Encore and News are the only additional channels they've managed to launch through DStv with the over delayed sports channel on a test phase through DTT platforms.
Two years after Encore's arrival, SABC signed a deal with an African online platform nobody heard off called Tuluntulu. That supplied a variety of online channels this introduced SABC Education and Children.
SABC Education, judging by the name you already know this channel was set to be an educational channel by now this brand shouldn't be new to anyone if you watch Uzalo and Skeem Saam you would have seen this brand name at the end of the show. This channel would have been no different to encore with it's lineup having educational elements and consisting of old reality, lifestyle and drama series. Two years back, there was some negotiation regarding this channel with other organisations so maybe part of the channel will be treated as Mindset if it ever comes to life.
SABC Children, this youth channel is used for both local and international content except the local content is not part of SABC Education and since SABC is staying true to their roots the kids lineup more likely consisted of American animated series dubbed in other South African languages. This would have been one of the few SABC channels with international programming.
Due to the pandemic, it's possible that SABC Education will materialize it's the only channel along with SABC Sports I can see a future off with the rest they kind seem like another future failed experiment. Even with e.tv they launched several of their own channels only to scrap some of them.
SABC Education and SABC Movies aren't bad ideas they have enough content in their vault for these channels with SABC Sports it's kind of complicated due to the pandemic and the last time I saw it on the DTT platforms it was being used for old matches.
Out of all the imaginary channels SABC plots to launch SABC Education and Movies are the only channels I can see on DStv the rest seem like an absolute failure to me and since MultiChoice signed a deal with Mindset for a spin-off channel it's possible they'll sign a deal with SABC for an education channel which SABC has been trying to get up and running.
