Explaining the Big Canadian Specialty Channel Shuffle of 2024-25


With less than 2 weeks until the calendar flips to 2025, there's some big changes to the Canadian specialty channel landscape, and that's because Rogers Sports & Media announced a licensing agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery's factual brands back in June, but some providers won't get the new Rogers channels that have WBD programs, including Bell, and a result, Corus Entertainment and Bell Media announced that some channels that had WBD programs will change names between the end of 2024 and the start of 2025!


Here's a breakdown of the changes of these specialty channels that are impacted, by company:


Bell Media

Discovery Channel becomes USA Network, Investigation Discovery becomes Oxygen, Discovery Science becomes CTV Nature, Discovery Velocity becomes CTV Speed, and Animal Planet becomes CTV Wild, all of which will happen on January 1, 2025.

In an unrelated move, MTV Canada will close down for good after December 31, 2024, citing "changing audiences", and many of these programs will move to CTV or Paramount+.

Corus Entertainment

HGTV and Food Network will become the Home Network and the Flavour Network, respectively, as of December 30, 2024.

The Cooking Channel and Magnolia Network will shut down after December 31, 2024, as of result of the Rogers-WBD deal.

Rogers Sports & Media

The new versions of HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, Investigation Discovery, and Magnolia Network will launch on January 1, 2025, while content from Animal Planet, Cooking Channel, Motor Trend, OWN, and the Science Channel will stream on Citytv+, in addition to these 5 brands mentioned above.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

In these unrelated moves, the Canadian versions of the WWE Network, BET, and the CBS Sports Network, will be dropped after December 31, 2024, while the 5 Bell Media specialty channels carrying new names will not be on Telus, and will be dropped instead on December 31, 2024.

Make sure that your channel lineup is updated before the start of 2025, or else, you'll miss out on these new channels.

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