Starting January 1, 2025, Bell Media will roll out significant updates to its specialty channels, including two new additions and a series of rebrands.
These changes are part of a licensing agreement with NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution, announced back in October. Bell didn’t specify when the rebrands would kick in, but now we know.
The Discovery Channel will rebrand as USA Network in Canada, while Investigation Discovery will become Oxygen True Crime. Both channels will be available for a nationwide free preview from January 1 to February 28, 2025, through participating service providers.
Also, Animal Planet will rebrand as CTV Wild Channel, Discovery Science will become CTV Nature Channel, and Velocity will relaunch as CTV Speed Channel. These channels will also be part of the free preview during the same period.
All five rebranded channels will be accessible via Bell Media platforms, including television, CTV.ca, the CTV app, and Crave, which will stream new shows from USA Network and Oxygen True Crime.
This expansion introduces popular NBCUniversal brands to Canadian audiences. In other news–who still subscribes to cable TV nowadays?
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Those channels have no int to me how about Hallmark Channel that would be something
Gotta love the way Bell is completely avoiding talking about the loss of the Food Network and HGTV from Bell platforms. Those networks now belong to Rogers. What happened to the deal customers were told was being worked on with Rogers? It is now mid-December, and customers are STILL waiting for the update that was promised when the changes were first announced. But as is their standard practice, Bell is ignoring their customers and aren’t talking.
Bell needs to stop making a big deal of the new Flavour and Home networks that include only Canadian content and are meant to replace the Food Network and HGTV. New sources of Canadian content is great, but it’s NOT what we’re paying for. We don’t care about Flavour and Home. Bell customers don’t want those networks if it means losing Food and HGTV. I guess Bell really doesn’t care that it’s going to lose a big chunk of its customer base to Rogers. That’s what’s going to happen if they don’t address the loss of Food and HGTV. Cable is already hanging on by a thread, and this will be what finally snaps it. I already have a plan to cancel most of my Bell services and replace everything with streaming services. If Bell doesn’t want my money, I’m sure Jeff Bezos will.
Food and HGTV weren’t owned by Bell. Flavour and Home will be operated by Corus (owner of Global)
He never said they were owned by Bell. He said that they are now owned by Roger's…
Yes, I know that. Did you actually read my entire comment?
Looking forward to the changes – not much we can do but complain online about it, but I'm hopeful for some good new shows to find.
I'm also a heavy streamer, but I have a great cable package and a PVR, so better to use the pvr and fast forward all the commercials – one drawback of streaming unless you're willing to pay for premium services. . 🙂