National Geographic Wild (shortened as Nat Geo Wild and abbreviated NGW) is a global

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

network owned by

National Geographic Partners National Geographic Partners, LLC is a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns 73% of the company) and the namesake non-profit scientific organization National Geographic Society (which owns 27%). The company oversees all comm ...

, a joint venture between

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

(73%) and the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural sc ...

(27%). The channel primarily focuses on

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

and

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

non-fiction programming. It is a sister network to National Geographic TV. The channel first launched in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

on 1 January 2006. It later launched in the United Kingdom, Turkey, Ireland, Romania, India, Vietnam, and Poland replacing the now defunct Adventure One. The channel remains the world's first

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

wildlife service, available in English and

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

in the Hong Kong market as well as Tagalog in The Philippines. It launched in Latin America on 1 November 2009 as a high definition channel. In 2010, it launched in the United States. , Nat Geo Wild is available to approximately 36,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2019 peak of 61,000,000 households.

Programming

Availability

Americas

The channel was launched in the United States on 29 March 2010, replacing

Fox Reality Channel Fox Reality Channel was an American pay television channel. It was launched on May 24, 2005, and was owned by the Fox Entertainment Group. It featured many shows that were originally on the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network (or produced by Fo ...

. Providers which carried the channel at the time of its launch included

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, o ...

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

Cox Communications Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable), is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services comp ...

, Verizon Fios and AT&T U-verse.

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

did not reach a carriage agreement at launch, but began to broadcast the channel on 19 April 2010.

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

didn't carry the channel at the time of its launch either, but it added the channel to its lineup on 30 June. DirecTV added the HD feed on 15 August 2012. The

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

n version of the channel was launched on November 1, 2009 and ended operations on March 31, 2022, with its content moving to NatGeo,

Disney+ The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

and

Star+ Star+ (Star Plus; stylized as ST★R+) was a short-lived subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service available in almost all Ibero-American states. The service was owned by The Walt Disney Company through the Disney Entertai ...

Internationally

;Africa The channel launched in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

in mid-2009, and is available on the South African Satellite Network DStv. ;Southeast Asia In Singapore, the channel is carried on the StarHub TV subscription services. Astro and

Unifi TV Unifi TV (formerly known as hyppTV, stylized as Unifi tv prior to January 2018) is an IPTV service operated by Unifi. It was launched in 2010 as part of Unifi's bundled service offering of VoIP telephone, Internet and IPTV. History An ea ...

carried the channel in Malaysia with four language audio tracks included. Some shows on Nat Geo Wild are aired in Filipino (Tagalog) in the Philippines, which also have multiple languages available. Selected shows also aired on

Fox Filipino Fox Filipino was a Philippine pay television channel focused on Philippine-produced programming from GMA Network, TV5 and Sari-Sari Channel as well as Filipino movies from GMA Pictures, entries from the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Fi ...

(now defunct). Nat Geo Wild alongside its sister channel

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

has ceased in operation in Southeast Asia on October 1, 2023. Most of the contents were later relocated to

(or

Disney+ Hotstar Disney+ Hotstar, also known as JioHotstar or simply Hotstar, is an Indian subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Disney Star. The brand was introduced as Hotstar for a streaming service carrying content from Di ...

for Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand) content hub. ;East Asia In

, the channel is carried on the Now TV subscription services. The channel launched in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

on 16 April 2009. In Japan, the channel launched on January 10, 2011 and its carried on the

Sky PerfecTV! is a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service that provides satellite television, audio programming and interactive television services to households in Japan, owned by parent company SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation. SKY PerfecTV! is also a dire ...

subscription services. The Japanese version of the channel was closed on January 31, 2021, after the successful launch of

in the country; as a result, it was the first Asian feed of the channel to completely cease operations. As described above, the network went out of operation in Hong Kong,

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and South Korea on October 1, 2023. ;Middle East and North Africa BeIN(stylized as beIN) carries the channel for Middle Eastern and North African viewers. The channel launched in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

on 23 July 2008. ;Australia The Asian version of the channel launched in Australia on 15 November 2009 on

Austar Austar was an Australian telecommunications company founded in 1995 as Community Entertainment Television (CETV). Its main business activity was subscription television. It was also involved with internet access and mobile phones. Austar's tel ...

and

Foxtel NXE Australia Pty Ltd, trading as the Foxtel Group, is an Australian pay television company that operates cable television, direct-broadcast satellite, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April ...

. A high definition feed launched on Foxtel on 1 November 2010. Although the HD feed was expected to launch on Austar in late 2010/early 2011, the channel did not launch until 1 July 2012, after Foxtel acquired Austar. On 1 February 2015, Nat Geo Wild launched on Australian IPTV service Fetch TV. On 14 February 2017, the channel was made available in HD for Fetch TV customers. Nat Geo Wild, alongside

, officially ceased broadcasting in Australia and New Zealand on 1 April 2023. ;Canada The Canadian version of Nat Geo Wild launched on 7 May 2012. Similar to

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Enter ...

, this channel is controlled by

Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. (often simply known as Corus) is a Canadian mass media and television production company. The company was founded in 1987 as Shaw Radio Ltd. as a subsidiary of Shaw Communications and was spun-off from Shaw in 1999. It h ...

. ;India The channel launched in India on 31 July 2009. In 2013, a

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

audiotrack of was launched on the channel. It features 4 audio track, which are in English, Telugu, Hindi and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

languages. As of October 1, 2023, the Indian feed is the only one left in Asia. ;Pan-European feed The channel launched on 1 March 2007 in Europe, and now reaches up to 10.5 million homes in the UK. ;France A French Nat Geo Wild was launched on 9 September 2008. Its HD feed launched on 8 November 2011. It is available in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Africa and many other islands. In France, it was exclusive of Canalsat and Numericable. In 2014, it joined ISP offers, but in 2018 it became a Canal+ exclusive again. ;Italy On 14 October 2007, an Italian Nat Geo Wild was launched on

Sky Italia Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian satellite television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo, and Sky TG24. Pay TV services on the Sky ...

. It is also available in Switzerland. Its HD feed was launched on 1 February 2012 and a 1-hour timeshift feed on 28 September 2014. The channel shut down on October 1, 2022, alongside the National Geographic channel in Italy. ;Spain A Spanish Nat Geo Wild was launched on 1 October 2011.

References

External links