BBC Worldwide North America and Blue Ant Media announced today that they have entered into an agreement to launch BBC Earth, the BBC’s premium factual channel in Canada. Scheduled to debut on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, the commercial-free channel will give Canadians exclusive access to BBC Earth’s slate of high-profile programming including Planet Earth II and The Hunt.
The highly anticipated premiere of Planet Earth II, will be broadcast on BBC Earth in Canada on Saturday, January 28, day-and-date with the U.S. premiere, which will air on BBC AMERICA. Blue Ant Media will release further programming information and scheduling details for the channel in early January.
BBC Earth will be broadcast in Canada in HD and will replace Blue Ant Media’s existing radX channel.
Comment: there's no mention of a free preview, but I wouldn't be surprised to see one for the launch.
With Corus talking about pairing back on some of their channels I wonder what this means for BBC Canada. The gushy press release "kindred spirits" makes me wonder if Blue Ant and Corus might make a deal for BBC Canada. Not sure that Corus really is that interested in BBC Canada anymore based on the program schedule and kids, women, lifestyle program focus. Other than the occasional British show and not necessarily BBC, having new kindred owners might mean that it would get a breathe of fresh programming.
Hopefully ... at least with BellSat , it is a seamless NO COST switch from radx to BBCEarth ....
The last change from Wmov to the new COOK ... not free !!! need to subscribe : (
According to Dr. Dave, BBC Earth is supposed to be commercial-free. Yet, it's also shown on BBC America, which I assume is like BBC Canada and has commercials. So how is BBC Earth going to accommodate the empty space where commercials were inserted?
Planet Earth II premiere now scheduled for Saturday, February 18 at 9 PM.
The Hunt will premiere in the spring. It is also available on Blu-ray for purchase now on Amazon.com.
Forces of Nature with Brian Cox premiers on Thursday, March 9 at 11 PM (11 PM seems kind of late).
The exact dates of the free preview of BBC Earth are Jan. 24 – April 23 on Shaw and Novus, so others will probably be the same.
The Planet Earth II premiere was also re-scheduled on BBC America to Saturday, February 18 at 9 PM. On BBC Earth: "Beginning at noon that day, audiences will be treated to a marathon of original Planet Earth episodes, as well as an hour-long documentary, Planet Earth II: The Making Of at 8 p.m. ET/PT."
These types of programs about the natural world already appear on Blue Ant's Love Nature (formerly Oasis) channel. Does this mean that Love Nature may itself be about to be rebranded to avoid any programming conflicts?
Looked at the schedule for BBC Earth Canada, at least the initial one, and it actually seems to be mostly different shows from Love Nature (with the required recycled CanCon thrown in). At a glance, it does seem to be largely BBC-sourced content, but they seem to have gotten some stuff from the US Weather Channel and elsewhere. The first few days is mostly marathons of BBC shows, with a "Countdown to BBC" all day on Jan 23.
BBC Earth now in free preview so it will be a while before we know what package or packages it will be in. However, it is likely that it will be placed in a different package than Radx occupied when the preview ends. I see it as being in competition with both Love Nature and even some Smithsonian channel programmes (Canada on the Edge to name one).
It's common for channel owners to recycle Canadian content on several of the channels they own. Canada on the Edge plays on BBC Earth, Smithsonian and Cottage Life.
Telus moved it from its Sports channels group in the 900 channels to its Learning ones on channel 725 in free preview. I imagine they will be packaging it accordingly.
It's in free preview on Eastlink. (Although it is not listed yet on Eastlink's website as one of the channels currently in free preview.). They probably haven't updated their website yet.
It's on RadX's old channel spot on 775 with Cogeco, also in free preview until April 24th.
The guide got updated today, at least for TiVo users. The label says "BBCEARTH-US" :surprise While the guide matches the Canadian schedule right now, I'm skeptical that it be right in a few days or so. Looks like this MIGHT be another Cooking Channel fiasco.
New series and specials: Astronauts: Toughest Job in the Universe (North American Premiere) launches Sunday, October 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Chris Hadfield stars in this six-part, hour-long documentary series.
The World’s Most Extraordinary People (Canadian Premiere) launches on Monday, October 16 at 10 p.m. ET/PT
Meet the Humans (Canadian Premiere) launches Wednesday, October 18 at 10 p.m. ET/PT
New six-part, one-hour series.
Steve Backshall’s Extreme River Challenge (Canadian Premiere) launches Friday, October 20 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Tribal Bootcamp (Canadian Premiere) launches on Friday, October 20 at 10 p.m. ET/PT
Africa (Canadian Premiere) launches on Sunday, October 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
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