Planet Green turning Red, White and Blue on Memorial Day.

[TNGTony]

According to this article- Discovery dumps Planet Green for Destination America - The TV Column - The Washington Post

Planet Green is being rebranded "Destination America" and will be showing "stories of America: past, present, and future."

For reference, Planet Green began in June 2008 when it replaced "Discovery Home".


And another article
Discovery ditches Green for red, white and blue | News | C21Media

 

[SamCdbs]

Couple of comment here:

1 - Discovery (the company) seems to be becoming the "format of the month" company. Not that this is necessiarly a bad thing, but it has repackaged almost all of its "side" channels at least twice each, and its version of one of its two main channels, TLC is nothing like the serious education oriented TLC it bought.

2 - The analogy I would see to the above is local radio. Every market has these second line companies that reformat to big hoopla every time the "book" comes out, only to do no better the next time. At some point the listeners, and at an earlier point the industry professionals, quit worrying about the company's efforts.

3 - The Market. The only perfect thing that can exist on this planet (pun intended). Speaking loud and clear about the need for a 24/7/365 chicken little channel. If you really believe the pseudoscience behind this quasireligion, then you really shouldn't own a coal powered TV, now should you? If you are among those of us who do not, then you changed the channel. In any event the entertainment value of being told the world is coming to an end next Thrusday is about zero.

 

[TNGTony]

I think you are being a little hypercritical here. The format changes of the Discovery channels are not as frequent as one might think. At least no more frequent than any other major media company.

The Science channel never changed from its inception. It changed names from Discovery Science and Technology to Discovery Science to The Science Channel without changing its purpose. Of course now it should be called The Construction Channel.

The Military Channel was once Discovery Wings. One can say it just expanded its programming.

Discovery Health turning to OWN was a mistake. BTW, "The Health Channel" was bought by Discovery Networks and folded into the already existing Discovery Health 7 or 8 years ago.

Investigation Discovery was Discovery Civilization. Discovery People was renamed from CBS Eye on People when it was purchased by the Discovery Networks. "People" rolled into the already existing Discovery Civilization.

The Travel Channel has been unchanged in purpose since its inception decades ago.

TLC was unchanged in purpose when purchased from an Appalachian educational group until much, much later. The main difference was that TLC began to show commercials. When the digital suite of channels took all the actual educational stuff, Discovery renamed "The Learning Channel" simply "TLC" and started the crap on there now.

The problem with Planet Green is that it was boring as hell, until recently anyway. The library was also fairly small so they had even more reruns than their sister channels (if that is even possible). Now that they have already started to re purpose programming from other genres they I have actually been watching it more and more, but not because of the "green" programming.

 

[SamCdbs]

With respect, you state Discovery as changing formats "no more than any other media company". And then list a complex series of transactions that, IMHO, are without rival. I really think Discovery (the company) really needs to focus on the goal. As in local radio, when you forget what you are trying to acomplish and toss up idea after idea, eventually your format changes cease to be an event that even the other jocks take notice of.

The thing about Discovery (the company) is that unlike the intergrated groups like Comcast or T-W, its channel offerings are its only product. It has no protection from the Market. Anything Disney or Comcast toss up is going to be on every system, because of their other offerings and their intergration. Discovery?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Discovery was the first company to offer cable companies a suite of "Digital Networks"

I was selected as one of the VERY FIRST paying customers for Digital Cable back in 1996. You can see my review of it at ALL-TV TCI's Digital Cable Service Review and if you look at the channel lineup you will notice that only Discovery was there from the start. Channel Lineup

It is because of this early jump into support for Digital Technology by Discovery that you will find all of these Discovery Networks on almost every cable and satellite service in America. They got their foot in the door when there was plenty of space available and cable operators were looking for new channels to draw people to their new digital services.

 

[goober]

travel channel was sold to scripps a couple years ago...Why not just name the new channel eye on people (lol)

Travel Videos, Shows, and Guides - Travel Channel look who owns..they might have a distribution deal similar to bbc america