Network Death

A rare case of the network dying so abruptly, the cable provider has to tell you.

Just imagining Bob walking to his seat, ready to watch the news on his favorite TV network. But once he turn it on, that's when he finds out...the network is over. That everybody, is the example of Network Death.

Network Death is when a TV or radio channel ceases to exist. Usually this is either caused by financial troubles forcing it to go off the air or extreme cases of Network Decay and/or Executive Meddling leading to it being "rebranded" as a completely different channel.

In some cases, two weaker networks are "merged" into one, meaning, one network absorbs the programming and other elements of the other. There's no guarantee that this strategy will work, however, as there are cases when even new channels that aren't rebrands never get very far off the ground, especially in a modern digital cable/satellite world that has to contend with cord-cutters and niche streaming services.

At the end of the day, unless the new network is able to find an audience with its programming, it won't be able to generate any ratings, which leads to low revenue.

When a network is shut down without a rebrand, it's almost certain any show being carried on that network will die with it. In some cases, though, a show will prove successful enough to outlive its former network and manage a last-second Channel Hop, usually a result of the show's rights being sold to another network.

This trope is related to, but not the same as, Network Decay. As noted above, Network Decay can lead to Network Death, but the channel must be given a different name and focus, keeping only its slot on the cable listings.

When this happens to an individual show, it's called Cancellation. When a dying network decides to do something to commemorate its end with a bang, it's a Network Finale. Compare Creator Killer.

---

Examples

Totally Dead Broadcast Networks

• DuMont was the third broadcast network to go on the air in 1946 (beating ABC to the punch), but struggled for its entire life before dying off in 1956.
• Paramount attempted the Paramount Television Network about the same time, but due to being in the awkward position of being both part-owner and competitor with DuMont and competition with ABC, lasted just about as long as DuMont and was arguably even less successful.
• BBC Three, which itself replaced BBC Choice, failed to survive a spending review initialised by the British government to restrict BBC funding. Despite campaigns and a fairly large outcry, the youth-orientated BBC channel (which was a starting bed for things like Torchwood, and a frequent repeat offender of showing American shows like Family Guy and American Dad!) ceased to be a broadcast TV channel in February 2016. It lives on as a youth-oriented video on-demand area on iPlayer called BBC II!.
  • However, this was averted when the BBC announced in March of 2021 that the channel will return in January 2022, with the pre-watershed hours focusing on content for teenagers and up. But it was then delayed by a month.
  • BBC Four also replaced BBC Knowledge, which was initially focused on education programming, but later shifted to to what ended up being a prelude to BBC Four's eventual lineup — which focuses more on the arts and other serious fare.
• PTEN died in 1997, after only four years on the air, mostly due to owner conflicts and affiliate issues. In its final months, Babylon 5 was the only thing keeping it from going under; once Season 4 ended, that was it, and J. Michael Straczynski, thinking his masterpiece would go down with its channel and having no idea that TNT would pick it up for a fifth season, was forced to expedite the Shadow War and Earth Alliance Civil War arcs.
• ITV Play didn't survive the phone-in quiz scandal and was "suspended" indefinitely in 2007.
• Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation (under its two different broadcast names, BBC-2 and later city2 in its final years) was a Philippine broadcasting channel from 1972 to 1986 when ABS-CBN was shut down under the Marcos administration. The former was in turn shut down when the latter was relaunched in 1986.
• PBJ was a children's digital sub-channel which aired mostly cartoons from the DreamWorks Classics library, though some might also know them as being the American television home for My Life Me. The station never took off, only getting 19 broadcast affiliates in five years before shutting down in March 2016.
• The United Network only lasted one month on the air: it debuted on May 1st, 1967 and was off the air by early June 1967. During that time, it only carried one show, The Las Vegas Show, a late-night talk show hosted by Bill Dana. Money problems were to blame: leasing transmission lines from the Bell System proved too expensive and the launch happened too close to the end of the TV season to attract major sponsors.
• MHz WorldView was a non-commercial broadcast channel that aired as a subnetwork of most PBS stations and broadcasted newscasts and other multinational programming from around the world. The channel signed off right at the stroke of midnight on February 29, 2020 as it transitioned to being only a digital streaming service.
• The NTA Film Network, established in 1956, was basically a syndication service which offered films and series (including 20th Century Fox productions; the studio had a 50% stake in the network) to their affiliates (over 100 in the U.S. and several in Canada), though it had a "flagship" station (WNTA-TV 13 in Newark, NJ), a schedule which some stations followed, and was treated as a "fourth network" by the press. It never proved profitable and closed down in 1961, with WNTA being sold off and becoming NET affiliate WNDT (then WNET when it merged with NET itself to make way for PBS in 1970).
• ABS-CBN stopped its broadcast operations for the second time on May 5, 2020 by the order of the National Telecommunications Commission of the Philippines due to a controversy surrounding the renewal of the network's franchise. However, they pulled off a Loophole Abuse by allowing their programs to air on different networks and online, even some on rival channels TV5 and GMA Network, and ended up transitioning from a broadcasting company to a programming content supplier.
• The Wometco Home Theater was an early pay-per-view channel that showed movies, in a similar vein as HBO; The channel was broadcast using a scrambled signal, and customers had to buy a descrambler box to be able to watch it. However, it only had four affiliates (all in New York City) and eventually, Network Decay set in before they stopped broadcasting in 1986.
• The Box began life as the much less catchy Video Jukebox Network in 1985, a sort of pay TV service where viewers could request videos via a 900 Number and after a few minutes to process the payment the video would be aired to everyone watching that particular affiliate. When videos weren't being aired the channel would show listings of available videos, and each affiliate could customize their playlist to fit that market. The channel was most popular among fans of rap and hip-hop, as they played it pretty fast and loose with FCC guidelines and would air videos MTV and BET wouldn't even consider showing. MTV decided the easiest way to get rid of their competition would be to just buy them out, and they did just that in 1999 and shut The Box down on January 1, 2001, replacing it with MTV2 to fulfill affiliate contracts.
• The Worship Network was a Christian TV channel founded by Lowell "Bud" Paxson, the same man who would later launch PAX-TV. At one point, the channel provided overnight programming for PAX, even through both of its renames. However, in 2010, Ion dropped The Worship Network from their stations and it suffered until it was shut down in 2013.
• Many of Brazil's networks, including the country's first, TV Tupi. The last major to shut down was Rede Manchete, which made history with some of its programming, including popular Tokusatsu and anime broadcasts, but sunk in debts, with a low point being a soap opera that ended with an actress reading a summary of the following events, and it left the air in 1999, with a whole new channel (which purchased the broadcasters, but not the network itself) taking its place.
• After Ion and its parent company were acquired by the E. W. Scripps Company, Scripps shut down Ion Plus, Shop Ion and Qubo on February 28, 2021, in order to make room for carriage of Scripps' existing networks ^note those being Bounce TV, Court TV, Ion Mystery, Grit, Laff, TrueReal, Defy TV, and Newsy.
• Tuff TV, a male-oriented network carried mainly by digital subchannels and LPTV stations, abruptly went off the air in 2018.
• JUCE-TV (a network owned by TBN) which itself was created as a result of the merger between their teen-oriented JCTV network and their preschool-oriented Smile of a Child shut down in early 2020 as a result of TBN's ongoing serious financial troubles.
• Religious networks Angel One (carried on Dish Network), Angel Two, and KTV were all pulled under when their parent company, Sky Angel (a cable provider which billed itself as a safe Christian alternative to Dish and DirecTV), suspended its television services in January 2014. Sky Angel folded completely in 2019.
• WBC Malaysia, a terrestrial news channel, was yanked off the air just months after launch in the late 2000s. Its broadcast license was abruptly revoked by the corrupt Najib regime for daring to post news critical of the ruling party and exposing corruption in the government.
• Digi TV, a lifestyle network mostly carried on digital subchannels, lasted less than a year before going off the air on August 1, 2022.
• La cinq (The five) was, since 1986, France's first privately owned free-to-air television network. But it was never profitable (and, due to lack of reception antennas, it did not cover the whole territory). On 12 April 1992 at midnight, the network died just like that.

Rebranded Broadcast Networks

• National Educational Television (NET) was a forerunner to PBS from 1954-1970. With its controversial documentaries alienating several of its more conservative affiliates and angering the Nixon administration, PBS was created as a successor and NET was merged into its Newark, NJ affiliate WNDT to become WNET in 1970.
  • The original version of the standalone PBS Kids channel was replaced by a joint venture between PBS and NBCUniversal called PBS Kids Sprout in 2005. After NBCUniversal took full control over the network in 2013, it was renamed to simply Sprout. Sprout itself was later rebranded as Universal Kids in 2017, and a new PBS Kids channel was also launched that same year.
  • PBS YOU was another educational channel launched in 2000, that was basically PBS, Part 2. It had budget problems from the start and almost shut down multiple times before being dissolved in 2006. It was then replaced with either the very similar Create, or its sister channel World, both of which are still around.
  • ThinkBright was pretty much the same thing as PBS YOU, but restricted to New York State. It was founded in 2001 by Buffalo affiliate WNED, spread statewide in 2007, lost some of those affiliates and shut down in 2011, replaced by World; except WNED, which got Create instead, and still occasionally uses the ThinkBright branding.
• The WB and UPN were merged into The CW in 2006 with many of the leftover affiliates joining MyNetworkTV.
• MundoFox, which launched as a joint venture between Fox International Channels and RCN Television in August 2012, started out as the Spanish counterpart to the Fox Network, producing its own newscasts, airing teleseries and telenovelas, and Spanish-dubbed versions of Fox programs and movies. After Fox sold its stake of the network to RCN Television in July 2015, the network rebranded as MundoMax, before the network ceased operations by the end of November 2016.
• Infomall TV Network (inTV), a network that was more or less 100% infomercials, evolved into PAX, which became "i" and then Ion Television.
  • Another ION channel, ION Life, rebranded in 2019 as ION Plus and shifted from lifestyle programming to dramas and crime programming. It has since become a linear-only channel, it's over-the-air broadcasting having been suspended in 2021 to make room for other networks on the ION stations.
• QTV was an offshoot channel of GMA Network, whose viewership was aimed towards women. As Network Decay stepped in, it was shut down in 2011, and was replaced by GMA News TV, which in turn also fell victim to decay... until it was rebranded once again as GTV (or Good TV as it was known) in 2021, and pretty much carried mixed programs in a attempt to prevent another decay just like the former two channels.
  • However, this was not the first time GMA did this. Their first attempt at a second channel, Citynet 27, only lasted for a few years in the mid-90's to early 2000's.
• Studio 23 was a channel owned by ABS-CBN, where much of the programs were young adult oriented and its programming were in English. It ceased operations in 2014 due to declining viewership, and it was replaced by a sports-oriented channel also run by ABS-CBN.
• ABC (Associated Broadcasting Company) was a private TV network in the Philippines which started operations in 1992. As Network Decay and declining viewership stepped in, they formed a partnership with Malaysia's Media Prima Berhad. Hence it was renamed as TV5 on August 9, 2008. In late 2009, the station was bought by Manny V. Pangilinan, and ended up being renamed to The 5 Network.
• Quebec's second private TV network began as Télévision Quatre Saisons in 1986 (later abbreviated to TQS), then became V in 2009 a year after being bought by Remstar, and is now known since August 31, 2020 as Noovo following its acquisition by Bell Media.
• TV3 and its two spinoffs, 3e and be3, became Virgin Media One, Two and Three, respectively, in 2018, putting an end to the TV3 name after 20 years.
• MTV Brazil was a broadcast channel owned by media conglomerate Grupo Abril under license from Viacom. It went off the air in 2013, with Viacom launching an unrelated MTV on cable services afterwards. The terrestrial broadcast network was replaced by Ideal TV.
• The Church Channel was a subchannel owned by TBN that primarily carried brokered church services. In 2016 it rebranded as Hillsong Channel, shifting to a more generalized focus (with much of its programming coming from the eponymous Australian megachurch). In 2022 it was renamed TBN Inspire, amid growing controversies surrounding the church.
• JCTV was a network owned by TBN that was basically a Christian clone of MTV. In 2015 it merged with TBN's preschool network Smile of a Child into a new channel called JUCE-TV which itself shut down in early 2020.
• AksyonTV was a channel owned by Nation Broadcasting Corporation and TV5, airing news programs from News5 and Radyo5 92.3 News FM and sports programs from ESPN5, it was launched in 2011 and ceased airing on January 12, 2019 with a boxing match as its final program, and replaced by the news-based One PH and the sports-oriented 5 Plus (later renamed as One Sports on March 8, 2020).
• MetroVision Malaysia shut down with little to no fanfare in 2005, after which its license and headquarters were purchased wholesale by Media Prima, and it was relaunched as 8TV, with its programming repurposed to cater to the Chinese community (MetroVision's programming was more mainstream and aired mostly western programming).
• Fellow Malaysian TV channel Channel 9 suffered a similar fate in the late 2000s. After failing to secure an audience just months after launch, it was purchased wholesale by Media Prima and relaunched as TV9, this time catering to the general Malay population with Islamic programming and western shows dubbed into Malay. Again, Channel 9's programming was more mainstream, if adult oriented.

Totally Dead Mainstream Cable/Satellite Networks

• Three of British Satellite Broadcasting's five networks did not survive the merger with Sky Television. BSB's general entertainment net, Galaxy, merged with Sky One, while BSB's current affairs and arts channel Now merged with Sky News (with a separate opt-out called Sky Arts seen only by people using the former BSB equipment, to run out the contract BSB had for their arts programming). The Sports Channel was rebranded as the first Sky Sports and The Movie Channel was rebranded as a sister to Sky Movies (and eventually was rebranded as "Sky Movies Screen 2" in 1997). The sole channel to be shuttered completely was BSB's Power Station (their Golden Age MTV clone), which was replaced on the BSB system by Sky Movies.
• Newsworld International was bought by Al Gore to start Current TV, which struggled until it was sold to Al Jazeera to form Al Jazeera America, which folded in 2016.
• Satellite News Channel (SNC) was launched in 1982 by ABC and Westinghouse as a competitor to CNN, with a format of a quick rundown of the news every 18 minutes. What is now CNN's HLN was preemptively launched as a competitor to SNC before SNC even came on the air. SNC failed to get enough cable carriers and was bought out by CNN and taken off the air after about 16 months of operation.
  • ABC attempted another news channel, ABC News Now, starting in 2004. It was carried both as a digital subchannel to ABC affiliates and as a cable channel. In 2009 the digital subchannel was replaced with the Live Well Network and the cable channel was replaced with a joint venture with Univision called Fusion in 2013.
• CNN itself has had its fair share of failed spinoff networks, including:
  • CNN Sports Illustrated or CNNSI, their answer to ESPN's Sports Center, which had the misfortune of coming into being around the same time as ESPNEWS (which was created as a Take That! move by ESPN against their competition). After years of struggling for an audience and cable coverage, it went off the air in 2002.
  • CNN+, a Spanish-language channel for Spain which went off the air in 2010.
  • CNN Italia, the Italian version of CNN. It went off the air in 2003.
  • CNNfn, their answer to CNBC. It too struggled with audience and cable coverage, and went off the air in 2004.
  • CNN Checkout Channel, a version of CNN's Airport Network, targeted at grocery stores; it wasn't successful and was only in operation from 1991 to 1993.
  • CNN Airport Network, a version of CNN found exclusively in airports, shut down in 2021, citing the ubiquity of streaming video having made the network’s purpose outdated.
• French travel-themed network Odyssey became Stylia in 2010 and then went off the air in 2014.
• Due to low ratings and a failure to get "must-carry" status, Canada's Sun News Network abruptly shut down in 2015 with mere hours of advanced warning. In fact, the last real thing that it showed was a promo for a show that would of course never again air. This was followed by the channel's logo sitting silently on the screen for 30 seconds, followed by blackness. The abruptness of this forced cable/satellite providers to put up notices like the one at the top of this page.
• ABS-CBN Regional Channel, a set of channels by ABS-CBN to be aired by each local region in the Philippines, ran from August 2016 to January 2018.
• Foxnet was intended to be a nationwide feed of Fox that served smaller areas that didn't already have a local FOX affiliate. When those areas ended up getting their own affiliates, the channel became redundant, and it was shut down in 2006.
• Home Shopping Club Overnight Service was a spinoff of HSN as a shopping network for the things that didn't get sold on the main channel. It was renamed Home Shopping SPREE in 1989, became America's Jewelry Store in 1997 (to reflect the change that resulted in them exclusively selling jewelry) and was shortened to America's Store in 1998. The channel ultimately shut down for good in 2007.
• On December 15, 2020, WarnerMedia shut down its premium movie channels in India, HBO India, HBO HD India, and Warner Brothers India.
• The British cable channel Music Box was launched in 1984 as the UK's version of MTV. This changed in 1987, when it was demoted to a programming block on its replacement, Super Channel. The new channel struggled for a bit, and then it was bought out by General Electric and became NBC Super Channel, later renamed NBC Europe. Despite being backed by a major network from America, NBC Europe couldn't actually get the rights to most of the shows the American NBC was airing at the time, so the channel kept struggling until it was shut down for good in most of Europe in 1998.
  • In Germany, NBC Europe kept going strong until 2005, when it was rebranded as Das Vierte, which itself shut down in 2013 after it was bought out by Disney and replaced with the Disney Channel.
• British cable channel Bravo (no relation to the American one) was shut down at the end of 2010 for ambiguous reasons, namely that it served the same demographic as fellow Sky-owned channel Sky1.
• BBC Canada was shut down at the end of 2020 for unknown reasons.
• Weather Information Network, the only weather-oriented television channel in the Philippines owned by TV5, launched in 2012, broadcasting weather alerts courtesy of New Zealand-based MetraWeather, the channel ceased broadcasting on December 23, 2013 due to TV5 transferring its studios to Mandaluyong.
• Solar Entertainment's sports networks Basketball TV (launched in 2006) and NBA Premium TV (launched in 2010), both broadcasting games from the National Basketball Association, both ceased broadcasting on October 1, 2019 due to the expiration of Solar's contract with the NBA.
• ABS-CBN's sports channel Liga (airing sports matches from ABS-CBN's archives) was closed in October 2020 due to closure of ABS-CBN Sports because of the implementation of the network's retrenchment program on August 31, 2020.
• NBCSN ceased operations at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 2021, and the NBC Sports service switched over to Peacock in a broadcast partnership with USA Network.
• Hallmark Channel Asia ceased broadcast in late 2003, due to NBCUniversal pulling out of the partnership.
• Kremlin-backed Russia Today (also known as RT) was banned in many countries in response to Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and even more following their 2022 invasion of the rest of Ukraine, effectively killing the versions of the channel tailored to those nations. While its content is still available online in many countries, it would be easier to list the nations that still air the cable channel than those that have banned it.
• The Australian feed of PBS Kids shut down on July 1, 2023, almost two years after launching, due to low viewership.

Rebranded Mainstream Cable/Satellite Networks

• Solar Entertainment in the Philippines has its share of rebranding their channels catered by genre and demographic. First, Solar USA, which programmed crime dramas, suspense, and action (Hence their tagline, "Ultimate in Suspense and Action"), was split in 2005 into the comedy-oriented Jack TV, and the action-oriented C/S, which was CT from 2015 to 2017.
• Trio began as a channel for airing CBC's fine arts programming in the US, then later changed owners a few times before becoming a sister station of Bravo and then becoming a mainstream "pop culture network" that was taken off of TV and replaced with mystery-focused Sleuth. Sleuth became Cloo, which drifted back into mainstream programming again before folding completely in 2017.
• Spike TV, a Viacom-owned channel originally aimed at men, lasted from August 2003 to January 2018, after which it was replaced with Paramount Network. The network went out with a humorous bang on social media, with the final Tweets from the network's Twitter account being all sorts of "confessions" about the network and its programming (e.g. claiming that the stories in 1000 Ways to Die were based on the creator's nightmares, or that when they got the rights to TNA (now Impact Wrestling) they were expecting it to be something other than wrestling) and things such as a faux-resume purportedly from the person running the account in search of another job.
• The Prevue Channel showed a rolling scroll of TV listings, run by the viewer's cable or satellite provider using an Amiga computer and a C-Band satellite feed, as a replacement for the Electronic Programming Guide. Eventually, it added at the top of the screen such things as Coming Attractions, interviews, and information on what was on primetime TV that night. It also got a sister channel, Sneak Prevue, devoted to pay-per-view trailers and listings. Later, at the Turn of the Millennium, it rebranded to the TV Guide Channel after Prevue's parent merged with other companies. Around that time, more and more cable and satellite providers were bringing digital television to more and more homes and businesses. They began to offer interactive guides, which let viewers scroll through the listings themselves, instead of having to wait for a channel to scroll by, and to see what was on TV a lot further out than the scrolls allowed. So, there just wasn't as great a need for rolling-scroll channel listings, and the TV Guide Channel— which then became the TV Guide Network, and then simply TVGN— began to focus less on the listings and more on interviews and celebrity gossip. Eventually, the channel was bought out by CBS and was rebranded in 2015 as a new variety channel aimed at young adults, called Pop.
• UK Living began in 1993 as a general entertainment channel for women. In 1997, after being denied from becoming part of UKTV due to similarities between itself and UKTV's UK Style, it dropped the UK. It continued as Living(TV) for several years before being acquired by Sky in 2010 and rebranded Sky Living the following year. From that point on it was slowly retooled as an investigative drama channel, eventually becoming Sky Witness in 2018.
• On March 1, 2021 WGN America, a superstation expansion of Chicago's famous WGN that was also formerly known as Superstation WGN, re-branded as NewsNation and began a slow transition to being a 24-hour news channel, slowly removing entertainment programming as contracts for syndication expired and immediately removing infomercials right at the rebranding.
• On January 5, 2022, DIY Network became Magnolia Network and transitioned from a reality/documentary channel with a focus on home building/home remodeling programming to more of a general lifestyle focused network. The launch was originally planned in October 2020 but the COVID-19 Pandemic delayed the production of new programming for the new channel until enough was made to begin the new channel.
• Sky One ended its impressive 39-year run on September 1, 2021, when it split into Sky Showcase - which inherited the channel space and serves as a sampler of the entire Sky network - and Sky Max, which inherited the shows (save for most of the comedies, which moved to Sky Comedy).

Totally Dead Niche Cable/Satellite Networks

• KidsCo, screwed over in early 2014 due to a combination of NBCUniversal deciding to pull out of the deal to focus on Sprout which they bought off PBS, and DHX Media buying up DiC Entertainment and pulling out of the deal to put focus on The Hub.
• Tech TV was purchased by Comcast and merged into G4TV before most of the Tech TV elements disappeared from the merged network. G4TV itself was going to be replaced by the Esquire Network in fall 2013, before additional last-second Executive Meddling lead to the Style Network getting replaced instead. This left G4 as a "zombie network" of nothing but reruns, syndicated shows, and ads until its death at the end of 2014, with the syndicated shows not even airing in the last few months. In a surprising turn of events however, G4 came back from the dead, first as an Internet-only presence and later returning to cable in 2021; however, it unfortunately died again due to lay-offs.
  • The aforementioned Style Network was replaced by the Esquire Network in 2013, which itself did not last.
  • The Canadian version of G4 was shut down in August 2017, having outlived both its American counterpart and the Esquire Network that was once set to replace it.
• The aforementioned Esquire Network that replaced the Style Network was aimed at metrosexual males. The network had abysmal ratings right from the get-go, and its only notable programming were reruns and spinoffs of American Ninja Warrior, the sole surviving original series from G4, as well as the original Ninja Warrior series. Ultimately, Esquire went off the air in June 2017, with the unfulfilled promise to switch to an online model.
  • The Australian version of the Style Network abruptly shut down in December 2019, having it outlive the Esquire Network by six years.
• The Japanese Nickelodeon channel went off the air on September 30, 2009, abruptly shutting down in the middle of a bumper. They came back just as suddenly in 2018, starting first as an online channel for Amazon Prime Japan.
• Taiwanese general entertainment channel JET TV or Japan Entertainment Television had a Philippine feed that usually aired Doramas (mostly dubbed in English) and an English dub of UFO Warrior Dai Apolon before it went off the air for undisclosed reasons.
• CBS Cable launched in 1981 with a focus on the arts and folded after only 14 months due to being a niche channel when cable was too small for such a thing, as well as overlaps in programming with a much more widely available PBS.
• Chiller was an American network themed around horror films and television series. Starting in 2017, several companies began dropping the channel due to it being too niche. The channel shut down completely on December 31, 2017, with the movie The Babadook having its last scream on the network before shutting down.
• Pivot, an activism-oriented channel aimed at young adults, broadcast from August 2013 to October 2016, with their final programming being five consecutive showings of the movie Good Night, and Good Luck.
  • Pivot itself was launched as a result of a merger between two other networks, The Documentary Channel and Halogen TV.
• 3net was a channel exclusively on DirecTV that broadcast 3D content, mostly from Discovery and Sony. The channel launched in early 2011 and was closed in August 2014, likely because of 3D TVs not taking off like they were expected to.
  • Sky 3D in the UK had a similar life and death, though 3D showings of movies are still occasionally available on Sky Store.
• Another British channel, The Wrestling Channel, went through financial troubles during its five years on the air. Its name was shortened to TWC, and then it was changed to TWC Fight! before it became The Fight Network after being bought out by the Canadian channel of the same name. But even that wasn't enough to save it, and so it was shut down in 2008.
• TAG was a Filipino channel launched by ABS-CBN in 2016 which aired Filipino-dubbed Hollywood and Asian movies. Unfortunately, the channel ceased its broadcast on January 31, 2018.
  • Anime-focused sister station HERO TV was launched in 2005 and was shut down about the same time as TAG due to the lack of advertising support and "a change in business direction".
• ZAZ was a Mexican children's programming network that launched in 1991 and expanded to all of Latin America in 1996. It started showing anime in 2009, then stopped showing new episodes of it in 2011 before cancelling the shows one at a time. It went off the air in August 2012.
• Supermax was a Czech programming network featuring mostly animated television programs for teens and pre-teens that was launched in 1994. Most of the programs aired were cancelled in 2003, with the whole network going off the air by 2004.
• Every channel related to Disney closed in New Zealand on November 30, 2019, though the channels still lived on through Australia at the time. Other countries then followed suit, with all three channels affected, with some due to Disney+ coming soon to these territories.
  • Disney XD ceased to exist in Australia on January 6, 2019. In November of the same year, Foxtel Movies Disney was also ended due to a combination of low ratings (outside of Disney Channel's usual target) and the launch of Disney+, with the channel's number being reused as a channel for teen romance films. The final films played under Disney were the High School Musical trilogy, with the Twilight films opening the rebranding. Finally, Disney Channel and Disney Junior closed down on Foxtel on March 1, 2020, and entirely on April 30, 2020.
  • Disney Junior ended its run in the Netherlands on April Fool's Day in 2019. Hungary's feed ended in 2018.
  • In Italy, Disney XD, along with Disney In English, shut down on October 1, 2019, though it was done very poorly. Disney XD was airing an up next promo, and Disney In English ended in the middle of a program! An Israeli feed also existed, though only for one month.
    • Speaking of Disney XD, both the Spanish and German feeds closed on April Fools' Day 2020 ^note The French-language feed also ended in Belgium and Switzerland on that date, but continued to broadcast in other French-speaking territories where it was carried until it ceased entirely on May 1st, 2020., with the Scandinavian and Japanese feeds following suit in December 2020 and January 2021 respectively. Also of note is the African feed of Disney XD, which followed the UK's feed and shut down on 30 September 2020 at 23:59.
  • Disney's United Kingdom branch would follow New Zealand's lead and shut down EVERY SINGLE ONE of their eponymous channels on 30 September 2020. Less than a year later, Fox shut down on July 1, 2021. The company's other channels (BabyTV and the National Geographic channels) continue to broadcast for the time being.
  • A few Japanese Disney networks, namely Disney XD, Nat Geo Wild, and Fox Movies, were shut down on January 31, 2021.
  • Disney Channel's Asian operations ended up becoming this too, starting with Singapore, then Malaysia (although, according to some accounts, this was done on satellite provider Astro's end purely out of spite, as Disney+ hadn't launched in Malaysia yet), and then the rest of the Southeast Asian feed afterwards. Again, this was due to Disney+ about to arrive in the region. However, this left Vietnamese with no means to watch Disney shows legally (At least outside of some shows that air on local TV) as its Disney+ feed have yet to launch there.^note The timing was not well thought out to say the least, there was a one year gap between Malaysia losing the Disney channels and Disney+ Hotstar launching in the country
    • Hong Kong lost Disney Channel on October 1, 2021, while Taiwan did the same on January 1, 2022. That day, the shutdown of Disney Channel's Asian branch was complete, with the Japanese feed of Disney Channel being the only one left in the region after Taiwan's feed died.
  • Both Disney Channel and Disney Junior shut down in South Korea on September 30, 2021, in preparation for the arrival of Disney+ on November 12 that year.
• Sky have a fair share of channels that shut down over the years with no replacement, such as .tv (formerly The Computer Channel), Sky Real Lives (not to be confused with the later "Real Lives" channel (descended from LivingTV spinoff Livingit) that made way for Sky Crime), Sky Soap and Sky Travel.
• El Rey Network was shut down on December 31, 2020, a month after Univision sold its minority stake in the network, and in the wake of its losing distribution throughout the past year, having been dropped by AT&T and Spectrum, among other cable companies.
• ResearchChannel was an educational channel owned by the University of Washington, made to show off the progress of scientific research by several high-profile colleges. Not many people received the channel, but it lasted 14 years before going off the air in 2010.
• INHD was a short-lived video-on-demand channel that was renamed to Mojo HD in 2007 and shut down the next year.
• Kids & Teens TV (also known as KTV) was a Christian based TV channel targeted at kids. It struggled for two decades before suddenly shutting down in 2019.
• Q Entertainment Network was launched in 2005 as the first TV network targeted at the LGBT+ community. However, numerous shady business practices led to the channel dying out after only a year on the air.
• Wedding Central was a spinoff of We TV focused on weddings. This idea proved to be too niche for most providers, and as such, the channel wasn't received by a lot of people and it got shut down two years after launch.
• Cable Music Channel was launched in 1984 by Ted Turner in an attempt to compete with MTV. However, most cable providers didn't want to carry another all-music channel, and it was shut down after only a month on the air. Then VH1 happened.
• The Pentagon Channel was a government-owned news channel targeted at servicemen in the US army. It was renamed the DoD News Channel in 2014 and shut down the next year.
• International Channel was a channel aimed at Asian Americans. It was renamed AZN Television in 2005, and ultimately shut down in 2008.
• Pan-Asian MTV clone Channel [V]'s localized versions in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines have all been shuttered.
  • Its Indian feed stopped airing original programming in 2016 and became Star Sports 3 in 2018.
  • Its Taiwan feed began airing in 1994 and was replaced domestically by FOX Taiwan in 1 September 2012. On 15 July 2018, its overseas operations have officially shut down.
  • Channel [V] Australia launched in 1995 and spun off a second channel, Club [V], in 2004. The latter became Channel [V]^2 in 2007 and then [V] Hits in 2009. Then [V] was closed in 2016 and V Hits became the main focus. The following year [V] Hits was renamed to simply [V] and the original Channel [V] became a Timeshift Channel of [V] named [V]+2. Then [V] was replaced by NickMusic in 2020. If you managed to follow all of that, congratulations.
  • Its original Hong Kong-based feed, which is broadcast throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as well its Thai feed shut down on October 1, 2021. Currently its Mainland Chinese feed is the only one remaining on air.
• Sports channel Arsenal TV was closed in after over a year on the air after co-owners Setanta Sports was forced into administration (i.e., they went bankrupt) and the other co-owners, The Arsenal Football Club, wanted to explore other options.
• British channel mytv (no relation to MyNetworkTV) ceased operations early in 2021 for unknown reasons.
• Canada's X-Treme Sports was shut down after financial troubles during the Great Recession.
• Cosmopolitan TV and IFC Canada were both shut down on the same day, again for unknown reasons.
• bpm:tv, ichannel and The Pet Network were all shuttered during the mid-2010s, with their owner Stornoway Communications citing the lack of sustainable distribution agreements being the cause. Stornoway left the broadcasting business shortly after shutting them all down.
• An obscure children's channel from Argentina called NICK (not related to the Viacom channel of the same name, even though they air some of their programming) was closed down on January 1995, just one year after it launched, because of very low viewership and failed competition with the other Pramer channels such as The Big Channel and Magic Kids.
• The Big Channel was an Argentinian cable network focused on cartoons and shows aimed at children and a replacement for CableMágico, Cablevisión's only children's channel back then. This channel's main purpose was to advertise toys from Cartan, a local importer which had an exclusive distribution contract with American toy company Tyco. Moreover, the channel launched its own merchandise and a monthly magazine to promote the cartoons and shows aired. However, the Big Channel signed off from Cablevisión after Cartan went bankrupt in 1995, prompting Pramer to replace it with Magic Kids. While the Big Channel returned one year later, it became a dump for low-quality series until it shut down for good on September 3, 2001.
• The Voom HD suite was a series of satellite channels owned and operated by Cablevision that were originally part of the Voom HD satellite service. When the service failed in 2006 the channels were all sold to Dish Network who carried them for about three more years. Every Voom channel ended service on January 20, 2009.

Rebranded/Replaced Niche Cable/Satellite Networks

• Noggin launched in 1999 as a joint venture between Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop. At first, the channel was mainly aimed at pre-teens, and its purpose was to provide educational shows for older kids. In early 2002, the channel split its schedule into a daytime block for preschoolers and a nighttime block for tweens/teens called "The N" (standing for Noggin). Sesame Workshop sold its stake in Noggin/The N in late 2002, giving Nickelodeon sole ownership...and slowly turning the channel into less of its own thing and more of a Nick rerun farm. The Noggin channel closed in 2009, replaced by the 24-hour Nick Jr. channel. In 2015, the Noggin brand was revived as a streaming app, temporarily bringing back its old logo and hosts.
  • "Nickelodeon Games and Sports" was a sports-and-gaming show-based channel that aired reruns of series such as Nick Arcade, Double Dare, and Legends of the Hidden Temple. For most cable providers, the channel closed on December 31st, 2007, with its channel space replaced by a 24-hour version of Noggin's "The N" block. Oddly enough, Dish Network and DirecTV continued their carriage of GaS for a couple more years, playing an automated loop of the channel's content. GaS became an online-only service on TurboNick.
  • The UK had Nicktoonsters, a sister channel to Nicktoons that was made to air the older Nicktoons that the main channel didn't have anymore. It barely lasted a year before it was replaced with a Timeshift Channel called Nicktoons Replay, which was later also shut down so that Comedy Central Extra (a timeshift of Comedy Central that shared a slot with Nicktoonsters) could become a 24-hour channel again.
• Discovery Channel has dealt with a lot of spin-off channels being renamed;
  • A 50% stake in Discovery Kids was bought by Hasbro, who turned it into The Hub on October 10, 2010. The Hub was owned as a joint-venture between Hasbro and Discovery Communications, until Discovery gained back 10% ownership from Hasbro. As a result of changes in staffing, it namechanged again to Discovery Family in 2014. While the evening lineup ditched classic TV shows for family-friendly Discovery library shows, the daytime programming remained largely unchanged.
  • Discovery Civilization Network: The World History and Geography Channel (later shortened to Discovery Civilization Network) was made to focus on current events in the world, partly owned by The New York Times. The channel was rebranded as Discovery Times and became more American-centric in 2003. Then in 2008, The New York Times sold their stake in the company back to Discovery Networks and the channel was rebranded again, to the crime-focused channel known as Investigation Discovery.
  • FitTV and Discovery Health were merged to become Discovery Fit & Health in 2011. It was later rebranded as Discovery Life in 2015.
  • Discovery HD Theater was made as an HD version of the main channel. It became redundant when HDTV became widespread, and in 2011 it was revamped as Velocity, a channel focused in cars and stuff. Velocity itself was renamed to MotorTrend in 2018 after Discovery bought the magazine of the same name.
  • Discovery Travel and Living Network is a channel devoted to home improvement and leisure-based activities. It was renamed Discovery Home and Leisure in 1998, and then Discovery Home Channel in 2004, before being replaced by Planet Green in 2008, which was focused on ecology instead of leisure. Planet Green was a failure, and in 2012, the channel went back to its original premise with its current name, Destination America.
  • Discovery Wings was originally focused on aircrafts, but over time, began focusing on the military in general, becoming Military Channel in 2005. Military Channel was renamed to American Heroes Channel in 2014.
• Toon Disney launched in 1998 and became Disney XD in 2009.
• Argentinian Locomotion was a channel that transmitted diverse adult animations including anime, bringing Latin American dubs for previously untranslated series like Lupin III: Part 1 (but was renamed "Cliffhanger"), Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain. It was bought by Sony and became Animax Latin America in 2005. This channel itself got a total rebrand into Sony Spin in 2011.
• SOAPNet was a Niche Network for 24/7 soap opera viewing experience. Due to the decline of soap opera viewership, the channel ended its run with General Hospital as the last program shown before the strike of New Years 2014, when it was replaced by Disney Junior.
• The Outdoor Life Network became Versus in 2006, which itself became NBC Sports Network in 2012 and then shortened to NBCSN. NBCSN announced in early 2021 that it would be shutting down by the end of the year.
• Fox Sports World became Fox Soccer Channel in 2005, then simply Fox Soccer in 2011, before losing the rights to Premier League games to NBC in 2013 and getting relaunched as FXX.
• The Philippine edition of MTV had its share of rebrandings due to competition with local music video channel Myx. Originally it was named MTV Philippines from 1992 to 2010, then MTV Pinoy in 2014-2016, then MTVph since 2016.
• Country music/culture-focused The Nashville Network (TNN) came on the air in 1983, became the more generalized "The National Network," in 2000 ("The New TNN") and then became the male-focused Spike TV in 2003. In turn Spike became known as the Paramount Network in 2018.
• Speed, formerly Speed Channel, formerly Speedvision, was completely changed into Fox Sports 1 in 2013.
  • It's Canadian/Caribbean version became Fox Sports Racing.
  • In Latin America, it simply became Fox Sports 3 or Fox Sports, depending on the country.
• The Funimation Channel, focusing on running both anime series and movies owned by the company^note though a few non-Funimation titles were occasionally licensed for the channel, ran from 2005 to 2016. In the latter year, the channel transitioned to a digital streaming service after the linear network was replaced with Toku at the end of 2015. With that one's launch, content from Media Blasters replaced all Funimation programming that moved over to the company's relaunched streaming service. It should be noted that some cable providers such as FiOS had the channel replaced with the Disney Junior channel in 2012, which replaced SOAPnet on most other providers.
• Disney XD in India was replaced by Marvel HQ on January 9, 2019.
• PRIME, a Canadian multichannel network which premiered in the late '90s, aimed at Baby Boomers and older audiences (though it stubbornly referred to itself on-air as a general interest channel). Most of the show's programming, particularly during the primetime hours, consisted of reruns of beloved sitcoms of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (particularly M*A*S*H, which aired in two separate hour-long blocks per day, at 4 PM and again at 10 PM). However, Canwest, which owned PRIME, launched a premium channel called DejaView and gradually the older shows on their schedule migrated over there, as shows from the later 1980s and even the 1990s began to migrate onto the lineup. Eventually PRIME was replaced entirely by a new channel called TVTropolis, which focused entirely on TV of the '90s and 2000s (including introducing Reality shows into the lineup for the first time), though (presumably to their chagrin) they were forced to bring back The Golden Girls (which became by far the oldest show on their lineup) despite several attempts to ditch it (probably because it always plays well with younger audiences). In 2013, the channel was re-branded again, this time as DTour, a lifestyle/travel channel with no scripted content whatsoever.
• UKTV have done both the rebranding and replacing channels variations. This was most prominent during the phasing-out of the "UKTV [genre]" naming convention during 2007-09, which saw UKTV Drama become crime drama-oriented Alibi and UKTV Documentary become nature-oriented Eden. New channels launched after old ones closed include the new drama channel Drama replacing Patriotic Fervor channel Blighty and gardening channel UKTV Gardens being replaced by reality channel Really (since sold to Discovery).
• The Wrestling Channel also had a sister channel, TWC Reloaded, which didn't do much better then the original and was sold off to become the movie channel Movies 333, which later became True Movies, followed by Sony Movies Classic, and is now known as Great! Movies Classic.
• Fine Living Network was launched in America in 2002 as a lifestyle network for rich people, basically. Then The Great Recession hit and the channel had trouble staying afloat until it was rebranded as a food-based channel called Cooking Channel in 2010.
• The US version of VH1 MegaHits was a spinoff of VH1 that focused on contemporary top 40 hits that were previously broadcast on the main channel. It was shut down due to low coverage in 2005, and replaced by Logo, a general entertainment channel targeted at the LGBT+ community.
• Fox Reality Channel was a Niche Network created by Fox that aired reality shows 24/7. It only lasted for five years before it was shut down and replaced by Nat Geo WILD (a sister network to National Geographic TV) in 2010.
  • Global Reality Channel was the same thing, except it was a spinoff of Global Television Network, and only lasted two years before it was shut down and replaced on most providers by a Canadian version of Nat Geo WILD.
• Canada was supposed to get Relationship Television, a network related to relationships and gender issues, and instead got the racier SexTV: The Channel in 2001, named after an existing CityTV show. After the sale of its parent company CHUM Limited, it was changed to female-focused film channel W Movies in 2009.
  • W Movies itself became the Canadian version of Cooking Channel in 2016.
• Canadian horror channel SCREAM became Dusk after losing a battle with Network Decay, and then shut down so that Corus Entertainment, the owners, could launch ABC Spark.
  • Similarly, Teletoon Retro, a sister channel to Teletoon, was shut down in 2015 to make room for Disney Channel and/or expanded coverage of Cartoon Network in Canada (depending on the provider).
  • Showcase Action (later referred to as just Action) was shut down in the same way in 2019, being replaced by a 24-hour [adult swim] channel.
• A-One was a Russian music network oriented at heavy/"alternative" music mostly within rock and metal boundaries. This sort of music remained the core of A-One's programming despite the definition of "alternative" expanding slightly. Then the network fell into the hands of Alexander Tolmatsky, who decided to rebrand it as a hip-hop network (which went about as well as you'd expect with fans of the previous incarnation of the network). In 2016, Gazprom Media assumed full control of the network, relaunching it as TNT Music, more or less an MTV clone.
• Sprout was a cable network that focused on preschooler programming. The channel's daily operations and carriage would be managed by Comcast, while PBS would provide the programming. The schedule was initially a rerun farm of PBS Kids series before they started green-lighting original series and themed programming blocks with their own continuity. They also tended to pick up shows that their rivals recently dropped. PBS had backed out of its stake in the station by 2014, and by then, Comcast had acquired NBCUniversal and moved it under its umbrella. Sprout would wind up becoming Universal Kids in late 2017, as Comcast's acquisition of Dreamworks Animation had given them enough of a programming lineup to create a general kids station ala Nickelodeon. The Sprout brand was still used to market its preschool lineup until it was fully retired the following year.
• CITV ceased to exist as a TV channel on September 1, 2023, with the kids' section of the ITVX streaming service becoming its primary replacement. However, the CITV name continues to be used for a weeklong morning block on the sister channel ITV2.
• Spanish cable networks Buzz and Dark are both interesting examples as they replaced each other. The former started as a programming block on the children's channel Super3 which focused mainly on anime, while the latter was focused on horror movies. As Buzz shifted its focus on extreme sports, reality shows, and horror movies while neglecting anime in 2008, the two channels' parent company, Teuve, merged it with Dark. This resulted in Buzz splitting into Buzz Negro, the original channel, and its timeshift version Buzz Rojo, which replaced Dark and took over its 8:00 - 0:00 schedule before giving way to Canal 18's erotic movies until its replacement by Dorcel TV. However, Teuve's acquisition by Chello Multicanal (now AMC Networks International Southern Europe) led to Buzz Negro's shutdown and replacement by Crimen + Investigación (now AMC Crime), while Buzz Rojo/Dorcel TV was replaced by a relaunched Dark on October 31, 2016, making the latter a case of Network Revival.

Totally Dead Streaming Channels

• Seeso was NBC's short-lived attempt at a comedy-focused streaming platform. It launched in 2016 and lasted less than two years.
• NRATV began in 2016 and ceased to exist in June 2019 after a dispute between the ad agency that produced the channel and the NRA itself.
• Quibi was an initially mobile-only streaming service dedicated to delivering "bite-sized" content with its shows having episodes with running times of at most ten minutes long each. It was launched in April 2020 and shut down in December that same year, not only because it fell short of the projected subscription numbers, but also because it was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when the size of the content was not feasible enough for most people. The rights to Quibi's original productions were sold to Roku, who promptly re-branded the ones they continued production on as "Roku Originals" and put them up on their Roku Central service.
• Verizon attempted to enter the streaming world with Go90 in 2015. Not even a merger with fellow streaming service Vessel could help save it and Go90 shut down in 2018.
• Jim Henson Family TV, a subscription service that hosted various non-Muppet series by Jim Henson and his successors, abruptly shut down after two years for unknown reasons.
• Often happens to Pluto TV channels:
  • Pluto TV Kids was a catchall channel for kiddie programming too recent for the other two kids channels offered at the time (Classic Toons for pre-1980s fare and After School Cartoons for 1980s-90s shows). That became superfluous when Viacom purchased the service in 2019 and started adding Nickelodeon-branded content.
  • Anime All Ages was a sister to Anime All Day, the main difference being that the former featured kid-appropriate shows like Yu-Gi-Oh!. This was retired in favor of 24/7 channels for several such shows, including Yu-Gi-Oh!.
  • Pluto TV Indies, which focused on independent films, was retired and its content moved to other movie channels.
  • 24/7 channels devoted to Marathon Running one particular show/franchise are sometimes retired with their content moved to generalized channels — examples include the Criss Angel Mindfreak channel being folded into Pluto TV Reality, and Wipeout and American Gladiators being sent to Pluto TV VS (itself revamped into Pluto TV Competition). Channels for The Carol Burnett Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson were composited into a new channel, Classic TV Variety, at the end of 2023.
  • News channels RT America and Today's Top Story, a 30-minute recap of headlines updated a few times a day similar to the original HLN, were completely retired.
  • Pluto TV Conspiracy, which featured programming related to conspiracy theories, was retired with some of its shows moved to Pluto TV Paranormal.
  • All audio-only music channels were retired in 2020.
  • Pluto TV Movies 2 was retired as the total number of genre-specific movie channels grew.
  • Mistletoe, a seasonal channel featuring romantic, mostly made-for-TV/video movies in the Hallmark mold, was retired and its content folded into the catchall Christmas channel; its function is now filled by actual channels for both Hallmark and Lifetime's seasonal movies.
  • There are also channels dropped for being too niche, with little if any programming repurposed elsewhere:
    • Classic Toons, already rerouted to the Classic TV tier due to its content being too dated for post-Generation X audiences, was retired in late 2023.
    • The High Channel (THC), which focused on marijuana culture-friendly comedy programming.
    • Loupe, a channel featuring montages of visual art such as painting and sculpture set to ambient music.
    • SlowTV, a feed of the popular Norwegian service that offered point-of-view footage of train journeys and the like.
    • 4K Ultra TV, which offered mostly high-definition nature programming at a time when that format was still new.
• VENN was — as its name suggests — a Video Game Entertainment and News Network, and launched in 2020 to produce content based on gaming and pop culture content. Despite heavy investment and an early model encouraging viewer engagement, it rapidly tapered off in viewership and returns, culminating in a furloughing of half the company's staff and cancellation of key programming in 2021. Its online presence (including the network's own website) have also been shut down, and VENN as a whole is presumably defunct.
• TCM's FilmStruck, which offered classic movies to viewers in the United States (from November 2016 onwards) and United Kingdom (from February 2018) was shut down in November 2018, with a replacement of sorts in Criterion Channel launching in the spring of the following year. However, this streaming service is exclusive to the States, so British customers have no (official) way of accessing the Criterion streaming library.
• CNN+, the online streaming subscription service created by CNN failed after only one month, ending its service on April 30, 2022.
• DiGi TV (not related to the American network mentioned above), an early attempt at IPTV on DiGi Malaysia's network, was quietly put out of its misery once 4G was launched. The DiGi system made use of some very outdated and obtuse methods of streaming its videos, requiring the phone to be capable of understanding that it needed to change GSM Access Points before it could connect to the video server, and be capable of running RealPlayer as the RealAudio and RealVideo codecs were the underlying compression technology used. This was only supported by Symbian phones proper, although some Windows Mobile phones could also do this with some modded libraries. So when technology marched on and Symbian and RealPlayer went the way of the dodo as Android and iOS and better streaming technologies like WebM and Opus took hold, DiGi saw no point in keeping the service alive and finally put it out to pasture.

Rebranded Streaming Channels

• CBS All Access became Paramount+ in March 2021.
  • In Australia, 10 All Access also became Paramount+ in mid-2021.
• HBO Max was rebranded to Max in May 2023.
• In 2016, the Utah-based Candlelight Media Group launched Lumin.TV, a family-friendly streaming service targeted specifically at LDS audiences. In addition to the company's in-house productions, they hosted LDS-themed movies and some licensed animated series like Atomic Betty. Then just a year into their existence, the service met their match with Living Scriptures Streaming, which served the same purpose as Lumin.TV but with more content and active social media engagement. Unable to distinguish themselves, Lumin.TV rebranded as Cozyflix in 2018 and refocused on romance (a genre Candlelight tends to specialize in) and feel-good entertainment aimed at women while doing away with the more explicit LDS content. The new channel only lasted for a year before shutting down in 2019, at which point Candlelight moved their content to the more generic FilmZone channel.
• DC Universe was rebranded DC Universe Infinite in 2021 and now focuses solely on the distribution of digital comics, fan interactions and merch. Its streaming content has been absorbed by HBO Max.
• Pluto TV has a lot of examples of these too:
  • Pluto TV Family was an all-family movies channel launched in 2018, a time when the service had few kid-appropriate channels. Again, after Viacom purchased Pluto TV and began adding Nickelodeon content, it was revamped into Fantastic, focused on fantasy movies (some of which had already been in rotation on Family).
  • Kids Animation, which focused on animated features, was revamped into Kids Movie Club in 2021 by adding live-action movies ala Pluto TV Family.
  • Pluto TV Movies was rebranded as Pluto TV Spotlight, keeping the basic idea of the channel serving as the "top tier" of the movie catalog.
  • Afterschool Cartoons, which featured 1980s-'90s animation, was rebranded Forever Kids in 2021, likely because the original name was outdated and to add live-action shows like Power Rangers to the mix.

Totally Dead Radio Networks

• The Amalgamated Broadcasting System (ABS) was an attempt at a "third" U.S. radio network back when NBC and CBS were the "big two" networks (Mutual was yet to be established and ABC was still known as "NBC Blue"). It only lasted five weeks, from its inaugural broadcast on September 25, 1933 to its closure at midnight November 1st. A bad first impression with both advertisers (ABS treated them as a "necessary but distasteful evil" and wanted to limit sponsor messages to short announcements at the start and end of progams, a once-common practice that had been abandoned by the early 1930s) and critics (vice-president Ota Gygi announced at the inaugural press conference that he only cared what The New York Times had to say, which pissed off the New York Daily News radio critic Ben Gross who led the others in attacking ABS) alike, plus the network being composed almost entirely of low-power stations, led to ABS' quick demise. Comedian Ed Wynn, then famous for his Fire Chief Program on NBC, was its president; its failure left him in deep debt and contributed to his nervous breakdown by the end of the 1930s.

---