Discovery Health Lives!

[DToTheJ]

As it turns out, Fit TV will be the de facto victim of Oprah Winfrey's new OWN network, as Discovery will partially resurrect its Health channel and merge it with Fit and be rebranded Discovery Fit & Health:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fittv-rebranded-discovery-fit-health-72503

 

[nathannah]

It's just making it all official though; they already switched to the new Fit/Health schedule on January 2nd.

It was much the only thing they could do in this situation; when Discovery Home switched to Planet Green the only show anyone cared about was Holmes on Homes, and HGTV grabbed those rights from their Canadian sister channel the moment they could, and what shows could move to the Hub from Discovery Kids were those that stood out in the ratings. With Discovery Health though, they pretty much had to move it lock, stock and barrel because it was still well-rated, and could easily move as FitTV had zero interest beyond the exercise and Marilu Henner fan demographic, and those Health fans were still rankled that Oprah bought out their network in the first place.

 

[Bill_W]

I'm sure Oprah was given Discovery Health because it was one of the few Discovery channels on basic analog cable. Now that for the most part analog cable is going away, it really doesn't matter but, Xfinity and FiOS do put the suite of all the rest of the Discovery channels on a higher tiered digital package, not the lowest digital package.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

People who want to work out a 2AM will probably just play a workout DVD, Is there really a market for a channel that shows aerobics 24/7

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Why don't they just called it Discovery Fit, Pregnancy & Babies? Most of the shows that were airing on discovery health were mostly pregnancy and baby shows

 

[mescutia]

I'm sure Oprah was given Discovery Health because it was one of the few Discovery channels on basic analog cable. Now that for the most part analog cable is going away, it really doesn't matter but, Xfinity and FiOS do put the suite of all the rest of the Discovery channels on a higher tiered digital package, not the lowest digital package.

Where I live, Comcast has (original flavor) Discovery, TLC, and Animal Planet on the analog tier, and The Hub, Science Channel, Planet Green, Investigation Discovery, OWN, The Military Channel, and Fit TV on the digital tier. [Of course, the only channels from that list that I care about are Discovery and Science Channel.]

Why don't they just called it Discovery Fit, Pregnancy & Babies? Most of the shows that were airing on discovery health were mostly pregnancy and baby shows

Was it Discovery Health that had that "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" show?

 

[Sammi Brie]

Why don't they just called it Discovery Fit, Pregnancy & Babies? Most of the shows that were airing on discovery health were mostly pregnancy and baby shows

Was it Discovery Health that had that "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" show?

Yes. It also has appeared on TLC, too.

For the record, OWN is on digital cable here (though Discovery Health had once been on analog cable, it was moved when Speed took the slot and moved down from 66. There's only one major network above 63, and that's TWC-70. Used to be that the expanded cable went into the 70s, with HGTV on 73 (for instance). Starz was 77 or so.)

 

[radiolives]

It seems Discovery should have left Discovery Health alone and have made Fit TV the new OWN Network. Or would that have been the wrong way to do it?

 

[radiolives]

Also I forgot to say. Now my cable provider needs to move Fit TV away from the sports networks and up to the Discovery family of networks as Fit TV comes right before MLB Network on my cable