National Geographic had move towards launch a US cable channel in 1982, but backed out. National Geographic Television, National Geographic Society for profit TV arm, and NBC formed a joint venture, National Geographic Channels. NGC then partnered with BSkyB to launched on September 1, 2020 National Geographic Channel services in U.K. and Ireland via BSkyB, Scandinavia via Telenor and Australia via Foxtel. Foxtel and BSkyB were then owned in some form by Rupert Murdoch. Sandy McGovern was president of NGC at the time. The 50/50 partnership was formed to expand NatGeo's National Geographic Television's productions, head by Tim Kelly, that was producing National Geographic Explorer for CBS. The original American version of the channel was launched on January 1, 2001 with Laureen Ong as president and Andrew Wilk as head of programming. National Geographic Society took down its museum and build a TV studio. At the time, the NatGeo kept its TV production unit and got a "sweet heart" guarantee production contract of 44 hours per year at an estimated $500,000 per hour of TV. Additional National Geographic channels in other parts of the world were also launched under the original joint venture. In 2007, Ong was replaced by David Lyle, from the just closed Fox Reality channel, as CEO and president Howard Owens. In 2010, the company launched Nat Geo Wild channel in the US to go up against competitor Discovery channel. Ratings dropped as a whole and Lyle and Owens left in 2014. Courteney Monroe moved up from her head marketing post to take over NGC US.
National Geographic Partners unit
On September 9, 2015, the Society announced that it would reorganize its media properties and publications into a new company known as National Geographic Partners, which would be 73% owned by 21st Century Fox. This new, for-profit, corporation would own National Geographic and other magazines, as well as its affiliated television channels—most of which were already owned in joint ventures with Fox. In October 2016, it was announced that the National Geographic Channel, the flagship documentary channel, would drop the word "Channel" from its name.
Brands
Current
National Geographic: The flagship television channel of the group which broadcasts documentaries on various subjects, as well as docu-reality shows.
Nat Geo Music: A channel that focuses on ethnic music.
Nat Geo People: Targeted at female audiences, the channel's programming focuses on people and cultures. Currently available in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Nat Geo Wild: It is a sister channel to the flagship National Geographic television channel that focuses on animal-related wildlife and natural history programming.
Former
National Geographic Adventure: Launched as Adventure One, it was aimed at younger audiences, providing programming based around outdoor adventure, travel and stories involving people exploring the world.
Channels by region
All of National Geographic-branded television channels are operated as a part of this unit's business. The Society provides most of programming on the channels, while Disney's broadcast-related units handle distribution and advertisement sales of the channels. In most cases internationally, the National Geographic and Fox channels cross-promote each other. In some territories, the versions of National Geographic channels are directly operated by Disney.
NGC Network Asia, LLC operates all of National Geographic-branded television channels across Asia except Japan. NGC Network Asia previously represented television channels from Fox International Channels in the region, but they were transferred to the newly formed Asian branch of FIC in the 2009 reorganization of Star TV. The Asian operations also oversee National Geographic TV channels in the Middle East and North Africa. ;Pan-regional channels
Nat Geo Wild
Nat Geo People
;Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and South Korea
National Geographic
;Indian subcontinent: Star India handles channel distribution and advertisement sales in the region.
