Discovery Health Channel was an American

subscription television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but ...

channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...

. Launched in July 1998, it was owned by

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 ...

as a spin-off of

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

, focusing on health and wellness-oriented programming. In the beginning, DHC's programming consisted of reruns of medical- and health-themed programming from other Discovery networks, particularly

TLC TLC may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2 * TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network ** TLC (Asia), an A ...

. As the network matured, it began producing its own reality series, mostly dealing with babies (''Babies: Special Delivery'', ''Birth Day''), bodies (''Plastic Surgery: Before and After'', ''National Body Challenge''), and medicine (''The Critical Hour'', '' Dr. G: Medical Examiner''). DHC also showed episodes of the

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 Entertainm ...

medical drama series ''

Chicago Hope ''Chicago Hope'' is an American medical drama television series, created by David E. Kelley. It originally aired on CBS from September 18, 1994, to May 4, 2000. The series is set in a fictional private charitable hospital in Chicago, Illinois. ...

'' on a semi-regular basis. DHC also aired fitness-related programming, most of which later spun off to its sister network

FitTV FitTV was an American pay television channel, owned by Discovery Communications. The channel focused on fitness and exercise-related programming. FitTV offered programming with such fitness celebrities as Cathe Friedrich, Sharon Mann, Gilad Jankl ...

. DHC won its first Daytime Emmy in 2004 for its original series about adoptive families, ''Adoption Stories''. On January 15, 2008, Discovery announced a joint venture with

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...

Harpo Productions Harpo Productions (or Harpo Studios) is an American multimedia production company founded by Oprah Winfrey and based in West Hollywood, California. It is the sole subsidiary of her media and entertainment company Harpo, Inc. The name "Harpo" is ...

to re-launch Discovery Health as OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, in 2009. After multiple delays, OWN officially launched on January 1, 2011, replacing Discovery Health. It was relaunched one month later, merging with FitTV to become

Discovery Fit & Health Discovery Life is an American cable television network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched on February 1, 2011 as Discovery Fit & Health, it was the result of the merger of Discovery Health Channel and FitTV (following the former's replaceme ...

. The network initially took on Discovery Health's programming with FitTV's fitness programming as a complement. It was relaunched in 2015 as Discovery Life, to reflect a generalization of its scope to include life events and family stories.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Television channels and stations established in 1998 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2010 English-language television stations in the United States Defunct television networks in the United States Warner Bros. Discovery networks