| Discovery World | |
| Picture Format: | 576i SDTV |
| Owner: | Warner Bros. Discovery (Discovery, Inc. at the time) |
| Language: | English, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian |
| Headquarters: | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Former Names: | Discovery Civilisation Channel (1998-2008) |
| Availability Note: | (at time of closure) |
| Online Serv 1: | Ziggo GO Netherlands |
| Online Chan 1: | ZiggoGO.tv (Europe only) |
Discovery World is a former European pay television channel which featured programming in the fields of travel, culture and history. It used to be a pan-European television channel. Discovery World offered a mix of history, culture, real-life stories, investigation, mystery shows, factual series and documentaries. At time of closure its programming was mainly in English and subtitled in Dutch.
In Europe the channel started as Discovery Civilisation, also called Discovery Civilisation Channel, in the UK the 1 October 1998, alongside the Sky Digital's launch and later followed by other European countries.[1] Discovery Civilisation focused on history-related programmes. On 1 November 2007, it was re-branded as Discovery Knowledge in the UK.[2] [3] On 18 April 2008 Discovery Civilisation changed its name into Discovery World across Europe and extended its programme lineup to also include programmes about culture, crime and "mysterious phenomena".[4] [5] [6]
In 2013, the channel got replaced by Discovery Turbo Xtra in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2015 the Canadian version was relaunched as Discovery Velocity.[7] On 31 March 2016, the channel got replaced by Discovery Family in Africa and the Middle East.[8] The network has closed down in Italy,[9] Portugal[10] and Scandinavia.[11]
Discovery World, along with Fine Living closed on 31 December 2020, when it last aired in the Netherlands and Belgium.[12]