Channels Luis Missed in His Iceberg Chart

Background? Background

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A good number of these hold a place of nostalgia for me. My internet (then also TV) provider finally got a digital cable service working around 2006 and I wanted to explore all the new channels.

The Videos, for context

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Rebrands

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Cable Health Club/FitTV

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Fit TV started out as a spinoff of CBN.

Actually, that’s over-simplifyïng it. In the 90s, after The Family Channel started making way too much money for CBN to reasonably still be considered a non-profit, it was spun off into a new company called International Family Entertainment, now called ABC Family Worldwide. ¹ In 1993, after the failure of the Game channel, IFE began planning the launch of another spin-off: Cable Health Club.² CHC launched in August of 1993 as a half-hour service of cable providers, then becamme a full-day feed in October. It aired 20 minutes of aerobics and wellness programming, a twenty-minute Body By Jake segment and a 20-minute home-shopping programme every hour.

Discovery HD Theater/Velocity

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Remember when HD channels were a novelty and not, like, the default? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Discovery HD Theater launched in 2002 as the very first basic cable HD network in the US. It mostly showed HD versions of stuff in the existing Discovery libraries. The few unique programs it did have were some nature documentary series, e.g.Sunrise Earth.[^]

Over the years, more and more HD networks launched and HD Theater was no longer the sole entry to a niche, but just one of many in a mainstream format. Then in 2011, Discovery remembered Monster Garage existed and decided they missed it. HD Theater became Velocity, which was dedicated to mostly shows about cars but presented itself as more of an upscale men’s network, like Esquire two years later.[^]

Discovery would enter a joint venture with TEN: The Enthuiast Network at the beginning of 2017. [^] The April of the following year, TEN would be renamed to Motor Trend Group, and Velocity to Motor Trend Network later on in November. [^]

Discovery Health Channel

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Discovery Times

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Fine Living Network

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Odyssey (and its predecessors)

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In 1992, two religious networks, interfaith VISN and Southern Baptist ACTS started time-sharing on the same frequency. They had a bit of a G4-TechTV-style coëxistence, at least on the EPGs: in practice they kept separate branding during their respective timeslots. The next year, VISN-ACTS fully merged and rebranded to become the Faith & Values Channel. It also added its first secular programs to the schedule.

Shutdowns (includes mergers)

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Bridges TV

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Daytime and Cable Health Network

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Daytime was an “alternative women’s programming” network run by Hearst, which launched in 1982. It merged with the Cable Health Network in 1984 to form Lifetime.

The Documentary Channel + Halogen

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Pivot

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I know this one breaks the alphabetization but it’s the late successor to the above entires.

ESPN Classic

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Fusion

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Lime TV (USA)

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This one is technically also a rebrand but the network did go dark for a bit.

Lime TV began life in 1999 as Wisdom Television, ran by William Turner (no relation to Ted). It was very much a New Age channel, complete with alt-med programming. In 2002, Turner died of cancer. Afterwards, his family sold WISDOM to a company owned by Steve Case, one of the AOL founders.

Network One (US)

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The Voom Networks suite

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Dish Network was the exclusive carrier of these HD Networks.

References

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[^]: Mcknight, Jenna M. (2006-10-15). “The Sun Always Rises on HDTV”.↗ The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

[^]: Richmond, Ray (July 29, 2011). “TCA: Discovery Sets Launch Date For Velocity, Adds Big Names to ‘Curiosity’, Preps Science Channel’s ‘Trek Nation’, Introduces ‘Weed’ Team”.↗ Deadline Hollywood.

[^]: Evans, Greg (August 3, 2017). “Discovery Communications Partners With TEN Network For Auto Portfolio”.↗ Deadline. Retrieved September 18, 2017.

[^]: Petski, Denise (2018-04-10). “Discovery Rebrands Velocity As Motor Trend Network”.↗ Deadline. Retrieved 2018-04-20.