Discovery People was an American cable television network. The channel was launched on March 31, 1997 by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

as CBS Eye on People, and featured news and human interest stories from

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', '' CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 ...

. The channel suffered significant losses, in part because few cable providers were willing to carry it. By the end of its first year on the air, it was only available in 11 million homes, less than half of what most cable channels need to turn a profit. In mid-1998, it was announced that

Discovery Communications Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chann ...

would buy 50 percent of the channel and take operational control. It dropped "CBS" from its title to become simply Eye on People. On January 11, 1999, Discovery bought the network from

CBS Corporation The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, and t ...

and renamed it Discovery People. Discovery continued to license programming from CBS, combining it with some of its own programming. Discovery Communications began gradually phasing out Discovery People's operations, using Discovery People's distribution for other networks. For

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. ...

customers, the channel was replaced by Discovery Health on December 1, 1999. In February 2000, Discovery announced that they intended to pull the plug on the channel.

References

{{Discovery Channel UK English-language television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1997 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2000 Defunct television networks in the United States CBS Television Network Warner Bros. Discovery networks Former CBS Corporation subsidiaries CBS News Former Warner Bros. Discovery subsidiaries