CTV Wild Channel is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

specialty channel A specialty channel (also known in the United States as a cable channel or cable network) can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targete ...

majority-owned by

Bell Media Bell Media Inc. (Canadian French, French: ) is a Canadian media conglomerate that is the mass media subsidiary of BCE Inc. (also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, the owner of telecommunications company Bell Canada). Its operations include nati ...

. The channel primarily broadcasts

factual A fact is a truth, true data, datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to Fact-checking, check facts. Science, Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by ...

series and documentaries relating to animals. The network was originally established in 2001 as a Canadian version of the U.S. cable network

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel focusing on the animal kingdom owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1 ...

, expanding upon CTV's existing relationship with

Discovery Communications Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1982, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Cha ...

for

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 that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

. Today CTV Wild Channel is owned by the Animal Planet Canada Company, which is a consortium consisting of CTV Speciality Television Inc. which owns 80% of the company (CTV Speciality Television Inc. is a division of

who owns 70% and

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

owning 30%; stemming from its ownership of TSN, although it is not believed to be involved in the channel's operations), with a further 20% stake held by Canadian AP Ventures Company (a joint venture between Warner Bros. Discovery and

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetised BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcas ...

, stemming from the American version of Animal Planet originally having BBC Worldwide as an investor). In January 2025, the channel was rebranded as CTV Wild Channel, due to Bell losing its rights to Warner Bros. Discovery factual brands and related programming to

Rogers Sports & Media Rogers Media Inc., operating as Rogers Sports & Media, is a Canadian subsidiary of Rogers Communications that owns the company's mass media and sports properties. Operations Current television brands owned by Rogers include two television sy ...

. Rogers does not plan to launch a new linear channel for Animal Planet, with its programming to instead be distributed via digital platforms.

History

In November 2000, CTV Inc. was granted approval by the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

(CRTC) to launch Animal Planet, a service described as being "broadly based on family entertainment that will combine high-quality Canadian programming and attractive series and documentaries from the U.S. counterpart, in the United States. The channel was launched under its current ownership structure (with the exception of Bell Media, wherein Bell Globemedia, later renamed CTVglobemedia, owned its shares at the time) on September 7, 2001. On June 30, 2008, Animal Planet unveiled a new on-air appearance, including a new logo and graphics, to align itself with the American service which had updated its appearance earlier that year. Ownership changed once again when BCE (a minority shareholder in CTVglobemedia) acquired 100% interest in CTVglobemedia and was renamed to Bell Media on April 1, 2011. On June 10, 2024,

announced it had reached an agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) for Canadian rights to its lifestyle brands beginning in January 2025, which were subsequently confirmed to include Animal Planet. This led to a lawsuit by Bell, which claimed the move would violate previous

non-compete clause In contract law, a non-compete clause (often NCC), restrictive covenant, or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition again ...

s with WBD; the matter was settled out of court in October. Rogers announced that Animal Planet content would move to its on-demand and streaming platforms including Citytv+, rather than a new linear channel. On October 17, 2024, Bell Media announced the channel would rebrand as CTV Wild Channel on January 1, 2025. The channel will carry over certain Canadian series previously commissioned by Bell for Animal Planet Canada, as well as other animal-related content from third-party distributors. The CRTC lists AP Ventures, Inc. (an joint venture of WBD and BBC Studios) as holding a 50% stake in the CTV Speciality subsidiary that holds CTV Wild Channel's license; it is not yet known if WBD and BBC Studios will divest their stakes in the channel due to its change of Canadian partner.

Animal Planet HD

On June 17, 2011, Bell Media announced that it would launch ''Animal Planet HD'', a high definition (HD) simulcast of the

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...

feed, by the end of 2011. The channel launched on December 15, 2011, initially on Bell Fibe TV and

Shaw Cable Shaw Communications Inc. was a Telecommunications in Canada, Canadian telecommunication, telecommunications company which provided telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. The company was founded in 1966 as Capital Cable Televisio ...

and launched at a later date on

Telus TV TELUS Optik TV is a product of Telus Communications, TELUS Communications, a subsidiary of TELUS Corporation, that provides IPTV service in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec. The service offers over 630 digital chan ...

.Animal Planet HD, Investigation Discovery HD and Discovery Science HD Launch Today
Bell Media press release December 15, 2011 About six years later,

Shaw Direct Shaw Direct G.P. is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Rogers Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two ...

added it and 5 other HD channels (

Business News Network BNN Bloomberg is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty channel owned by Bell Media with the name licensed from Bloomberg L.P. It broadcasts programming related to business and financial news and analysis. The channel is headquarte ...

Cooking Channel Cooking Channel is an American basic cable channel owned by and spin-off of Food Network. Both are owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (69%) and Nexstar Media ...

Crime & Investigation A&E Television Networks, LLC, doing business as A+E Global Media (formerly A+E Networks) is an American multinational broadcasting company owned and operated as a 50–50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company th ...

, OWN, and Travel + Escape) to the channel listing on September 21, 2017.

Logos

File:Animal Planet logo.svg, 2008-2020 File:2018 Animal Planet logo.svg, 2020–2025 File:CTV Wild Channel Logo.png, 2025–present

References

External links

* {{Authority control

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Specialty television channels in Canada Bell Media networks English-language television stations in Canada Television channels and stations established in 2001 2001 establishments in Canada