discovery+ Drops All Linear Channels For Shows Like ‘90 Day Fiancé,’ ‘Property Brothers,’ ‘Chopped,’ More
Users of discovery+ have begun to notice something missing when they log into their accounts. Normally, discovery+ users can watch select shows via linear channels (similar to FAST channels) for some of the most popular, long-running series on the service. But that section has now disappeared, and it doesn’t sound as if it will be returning any time soon.
Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed the removal saying, “As we continue to grow and provide the best streaming experience across all our products and through all compatible devices, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our discovery+ Channels offer. discovery+ Channels will no longer be available at this time but you will still be able to stream your favorite shows, searching by their name or their cast using the Search tab.”
In total, discovery+ Channels included 10 linear streams of different shows including:
- 90 Day Fiancé Channel
- House Hunters Channel
- House Hunters International Channel
- Deadly Women Channel
- Homicide Hunter Channel
- Property Brothers Channel
- Chopped & Flipped Channel
- Say Yes to the Dress Channel
- Property Brothers: Buying & Selling Channel
- Fixer Upper Channel
The live channels were introduced to the service in January of 2021 to account for shows that the company didn’t have the rights to stream on-demand. The channels were not live broadcasts of Discovery-owned channels like HGTV or Food Network, but rather a traditional, linear feed of episodes focusing on just one single title.
The good news for users is, WBD has now acquired the rights to stream these series on-demand. That means discovery+ users can now find and watch specific episodes or seasons, though they’ll lose a bit of the “lean-back” experience of being able to simply put the channel on and let it run in the background while they do other things. FX chief John Landergraf estimates that 80% of total TV viewing is of the “lean-back” variety, so WBD took a bit of a risk in pulling these channels from discovery+.
The removal of these live is likely due to the impending merger of HBO Max and discovery+ later this spring. As software engineers work to build the unified streaming platform, there may be more features that disappear from the user interfaces of both HBO Max and discovery+ in the coming months.
discovery+
discovery+ is a video streaming service that offers more than 70,000 episodes of 2,500+ current and classic shows from several popular TV brands including Discovery, Investigation Discovery, HGTV, TLC, Food Network, A&E, Lifetime, and History.