| Animal Planet | |
| Picture Format: | 1080i (HDTV) (2011–present) 480i (SDTV) (2001–present) |
| Owner: | Animal Planet Canada Inc. (CTV Specialty Television (80%)) BBC Studios (10%) Warner Bros. Discovery (10%) |
| Country: | Canada |
| Area: | National |
| Headquarters: | Toronto, Ontario |
| Sister Channels: | Discovery Discovery Science Discovery Velocity Investigation Discovery |
Animal Planet is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty television channel. Animal Planet broadcasts a variety of programming featuring animals.
The channel is owned by the Animal Planet Canada Company, which is a consortium consisting of CTV Speciality Television Inc. which owns 80% of the company (CTV Speciality Television Inc. is a division of Bell Media who owns 70% and ESPN owning 30%), and Canadian AP Ventures Company which owns 20% (Canadian AP Ventures Company is owned by BBC Studios at 50% and Warner Bros. Discovery at 50%). Through this ownership structure, this effectively gives Bell Media 56% ownership and control, with ESPN 24%, BBC Studios 10%, and Warner Bros. Discovery 10% ownership.
Bell Media will lose the rights to the Animal Planet brand and its U.S. programming at the end of 2024, but the channel will maintain a similar programming theme as CTV Wild Channel starting January 1, 2025. Rogers Sports & Media will take over the Canadian rights to Animal Planet programming, primarily distributing it through its streaming and on-demand platforms.
In November 2000, CTV Inc. was granted approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch Animal Planet, a service described as being "broadly based on family entertainment that will combine high-quality Canadian programming and attractive series and documentaries from the U.S. counterpart, in the United States.
The channel was launched under its current ownership structure (with the exception of Bell Media, wherein Bell Globemedia, later renamed CTVglobemedia, owned its shares at the time) on September 7, 2001.[1]
On June 30, 2008, Animal Planet unveiled a new on-air appearance, including a new logo and graphics, to align itself with the American service which had updated its appearance earlier that year.[2]
Ownership changed once again when BCE (a minority shareholder in CTVglobemedia) acquired 100% interest in CTVglobemedia and was renamed to Bell Media on April 1, 2011.[3] [4] [5]
See also: 2024 Canadian specialty television realignment.
On June 10, 2024, Rogers Sports & Media announced it had reached an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) for Canadian rights to its lifestyle brands beginning in January 2025, which were subsequently confirmed to include Animal Planet.[6] [7] This led to a lawsuit by Bell, which claimed the move would violate previous non-compete clauses with WBD; the matter was settled out of court in October.[8] [9] Rogers announced that Animal Planet content would move to its on-demand and streaming platforms including Citytv+, rather than a new linear channel.[10]
On October 17, 2024, Bell Media announced the channel would rebrand as CTV Wild Channel on January 1, 2025. The channel will carry over certain Canadian series previously commissioned by Bell for Animal Planet Canada, as well as other animal-related content from third-party distributors.[11]
On June 17, 2011, Bell Media announced that it would launch Animal Planet HD, a high definition (HD) simulcast of the standard definition feed, by the end of 2011.[12] The channel launched on December 15, 2011, initially on Bell Fibe TV and Shaw Cable and launched at a later date on Telus TV.[13] About six years later, Shaw Direct added it and 5 other HD channels (Business News Network, Cooking Channel, Crime & Investigation, OWN, and Travel + Escape) to the channel listing on September 21, 2017.