Future of Discovery Family?

[FirePuppy]

Here's the current statistics for all shows on Discovery Family.

• Super Monsters - The complete series is currently available on Netflix.
• Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures - The complete series is currently available on Netflix and Peacock.
• Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Too Cute! - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Chopped Junior - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Kids Baking Championship - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Treehouse Masters - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Cats 101 - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Cake Boss - The complete series is currently available on Discovery+.
• Pound Puppies - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
• Transformers: Prime - Season 1 can be streamed on Netflix, while Seasons 2 and 3 are available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
• Transformers: Rescue Bots - Season 1 can be streamed on Netflix, while Seasons 3 and 4 are available on The Roku Channel. Season 2 can only be purchased for streaming on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Video.
• The Adventures of Chuck and Friends - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV, while Season 1 can also be streamed on The Roku Channel.
• Littlest Pet Shop - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
• Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy - The complete series is currently available on Netflix.
• Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own - The complete series is currently available for purchase on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Video.
• My Little Pony (G1) - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
• My Little Pony Tales - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
• My Little Pony (G3) - "A Charming Birthday" can be streamed on Tubi TV, and the G3 specials can also be streamed on The Roku Channel and Hulu.
• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Seasons 5-8 and Best Gift Ever were removed from Netflix on the first day of February 2022, leaving only Seasons 1-4 still remaining on Netflix and Season 9 on Hulu. On top of that, the show was once available on The Roku Channel, but was unexpectedly removed in April 2022.
• My Little Pony: Pony Life - Season 1 can be streamed on Hulu, while Season 2 is only available for purchase at this time.
• Equestria Girls media - For this series, it's kind of a problem, especially for the 2017-2019 webseries. Really, why would they put it on YouTube just so they can deliberately lure kids into watching other videos on there? Believe me, I think that Equestria Girls series is what caused the "made for kids" setting to be permanently locked into YouTube's dashboard. If Hasbro hadn't done this in the first place, YouTube wouldn't have that setting by now. What's even more problematic is that because Discovery Family GO! no longer exists, the Choose Your Own Ending videos are pretty much "Keep Circulating the Tapes" content these days.
• Rainbow Roadtrip - Only available on The Roku Channel and a couple other streaming services that JustWatch can't even identify. You can't even buy it on DVD unless you live in the UK.

So by all means, every complete series on this channel is now up for streaming, at least except G4 My Little Pony. I have no idea what is going on with that series.

 

[PinkieLopBun]

• My Little Pony (G1) - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
• My Little Pony Tales - The complete series is currently available on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.

Discovery Family never aired these shows.

 

[FirePuppy]

Discovery Family never aired these shows.

I understand that. I only put those shows on there simply because Hasbro owns them.

 

[Moe]

Hasbro contents on Tubi lacked the closed caption - useless if you are deaf and hard of hearing.

 

[PinkieLopBun]

During the downtime, Discovery Family added a new show called Hanni and the Wild Woods, and reruns of Baby Looney Tunes, Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and The Smurfs.

 

[Goldstar!]

During the downtime, Discovery Family added a new show called Hanni and the Wild Woods, and reruns of Baby Looney Tunes, Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and The Smurfs.

I'm not familiar with Hanni and the Wild Woods, but the Looney Tunes series are of course owned by Warner Brothers and while WB doesn't own the Smurfs, the 1980s Sat AM show was produced by Hanna-Barbera, who had the U.S. broadcast rights to Smurfs at the time (those rights have since expired).

Interestingly, the first 2 seasons of H-Bs Smurfs are presently streaming on Max.

 

[PinkieLopBun]

I'm not familiar with Hanni and the Wild Woods, but the Looney Tunes series are of course owned by Warner Brothers and while WB doesn't own the Smurfs, the 1980s Sat AM show was produced by Hanna-Barbera, who had the U.S. broadcast rights to Smurfs at the time (those rights have since expired).

Interestingly, the first 2 seasons of H-Bs Smurfs are presently streaming on Max.

WB doesn't own Hanna-Barbera's Smurfs in the same way they own Looney Tunes, but I believe they at least own the rights in the U.S. It never really went away on Boomerang and the DVDs were distributed by WB. There's also an upcoming Smurfs FAST channel that will be available everywhere but North America because of licensing restrictions (which weren't specified, but I'm assuming it's because the company that owns the Smurfs doesn't have the rights to the 80s series here). I also checked the credits and it was copyrighted to both HB and LEPP International. HB probably made a deal that gave them ownership in the U.S.

 

[Goldstar!]

WB doesn't own Hanna-Barbera's Smurfs in the same way they own Looney Tunes, but I believe they at least own the rights in the U.S. It never really went away on Boomerang and the DVDs were distributed by WB. There's also an upcoming Smurfs FAST channel that will be available everywhere but North America because of licensing restrictions (which weren't specified, but I'm assuming it's because the company that owns the Smurfs doesn't have the rights to the 80s series here). I also checked the credits and it was copyrighted to both HB and LEPP International. HB probably made a deal that gave them ownership in the U.S.

Unless I'm mistaken, the 1980s Saturday morning version of The Smurfs is the only Smurfs series that Warner Bros. Discovery has access to, since WB now owns the H-B library. WB can't produce anything new with the Smurfs without getting clearance from Studio Peyo, who owns the IP.

Same deal with Josie and the Pussycats; WB can show the two SatAM Josie series due to them being produced by Hanna-Barbera, but WB can't make a new Josie TV series or special without clearance from Archie Comics.

 

[JMTV]

During the downtime, Discovery Family added a new show called Hanni and the Wild Woods, and reruns of Baby Looney Tunes, Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and The Smurfs.

Not only that, but Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures and Transformers Prime stopped airing on Discovery Family not too long ago.

As for the Smurfs, I didn't even know The Smurfs was airing on Discovery Family until yesterday when a few people on YouTube was talking about it. While I was aware that Baby Looney Tunes and Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries was airing on the channel since it was announced in May, but for The Smurfs, it caught me off-guard.

Honestly, I find it pretty interesting. Baby Looney Tunes, Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and The Smurfs does fit nicely to their lineup alongside the Hasbro shows. It's almost like a mini-Hub in a way. Not perfect, but it does shows some improvements.

Even though I'm still not too crazy about Discovery Family all that much, but it's great to see they improved themselves this year by having a semblance of variety. I know that's not saying much, but hey, it's better than nothing.

Also, in other news, Hasbro's contract with WBD has been extended to March 2025, so Discovery Family will be around for a while.

 

[CartoonLover2604]

Honestly, I find it pretty interesting. Baby Looney Tunes, Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and The Smurfs does fit nicely to their lineup alongside the Hasbro shows. It's almost like a mini-Hub in a way. Not perfect, but it does shows some improvements.

While overall I agree, my only real nitpick is that they add Animaniacs (both incarnations), Tiny Toons, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, etc. Tiny Toons would be great advertising for Looniversity while Animaniacs 2020 could have a broadcast home if CN or Boomerang aren't interested in airing it. Especially with how none of the shows I've mentioned are available to stream anywhere at the moment. (barring Animaniacs 2020)

 

[JMTV]

While overall I agree, my only real nitpick is that they add Animaniacs (both incarnations), Tiny Toons, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, etc. Tiny Toons would be great advertising for Looniversity while Animaniacs 2020 could have a broadcast home if CN or Boomerang aren't interested in airing it. Especially with how none of the shows I've mentioned are available to stream anywhere at the moment. (barring Animaniacs 2020)

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. That would be a good opportunity to airing Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs on DF in honor of their reboots.

 

[PinkieLopBun]

Also, in other news, Hasbro's contract with WBD has been extended to March 2025, so Discovery Family will be around for a while.

Where did you see that?

 

[JMTV]

Where did you see that?

I heard about it on Wikipedia(I know it's not reliable, but at least it's somewhat credible).

 

[PinkieLopBun]

I heard about it on Wikipedia(I know it's not reliable, but at least it's somewhat credible).

Here's a better source:

HASBRO, INC. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. (form 10-K)

OBJECTIVE Our objective within the following discussion is to provide an analysis of the Company's Financial Condition, Cash Flows and Results of Operations from management's perspective, which...

www.marketscreener.com

 

[Goldstar!]

While overall I agree, my only real nitpick is that they add Animaniacs (both incarnations), Tiny Toons, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, etc. Tiny Toons would be great advertising for Looniversity while Animaniacs 2020 could have a broadcast home if CN or Boomerang aren't interested in airing it. Especially with how none of the shows I've mentioned are available to stream anywhere at the moment. (barring Animaniacs 2020)

I could see Tiny Toon Adventures being run on Discovery Family and/or Boomerang to cross promote the upcoming Tiny Toons Looniversity on Max and Cartoon Network. Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid, not so much. The A! reboot was streaming on Hulu, and is over, so there'd be nothing to cross promote there. Freakazoid only has 24 episodes total, so it F! were to air on DF, it would have to air weekly rather than daily, since a daily run would burn through all of the episodes after a month, unless WB and Amblin were planning to make new episodes of F!. Speaking of which, in the case of each of those aforementioned shows, there'd be the Spielberg barrier, but I could see WBD being willing to go through that in order to cross-promote TTL.

 

[CartoonLover2604]

I could see Tiny Toon Adventures being run on Discovery Family and/or Boomerang to cross promote the upcoming Tiny Toons Looniversity on Max and Cartoon Network. Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid, not so much. The A! reboot was streaming on Hulu, and is over, so there'd be nothing to cross promote there. Freakazoid only has 24 episodes total, so it F! were to air on DF, it would have to air weekly rather than daily, since a daily run would burn through all of the episodes after a month, unless WB and Amblin were planning to make new episodes of F!. Speaking of which, in the case of each of those aforementioned shows, there'd be the Spielberg barrier, but I could see WBD being willing to go through that in order to cross-promote TTL.

I'm aware Animaniacs 2020 is over, it just would be nice to see re-runs of it on TV in case Hulu were to remove it. I agree with what your saying regarding Freakazoid, I would have it air weekends only because of the limited amount of episodes. Overall, what I was trying to say is I just wish DF could air WB cartoons that haven't already been aired to death on Boomerang for the past couple of years (or in Baby Looney Tunes and Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries' case, still are.) DF has nothing new going on at this point so they wouldn't got much to lose at this point. (Unless Amblin also has a say in if the Spielberg cartoons can air.

 

[Goldstar!]

Discovery keeps Discovery Family around for the same reason why it keeps Destination America, Cooking Channel and the ironically named Discovery Life channel around; for the ad revenue. Same reason why WB keeps the Boomerang channel around.

One thing that Warner Brothers Discovery could conceivably do is combine Disc Fam and Boomerang into one channel. I know that it won't happen, but they could do it

 

[Daikun]

One thing that Warner Brothers Discovery could conceivably do is combine Disc Fam and Boomerang into one channel. I know that it won't happen, but they could do it

Considering DiscFam is gradually bringing in more WB/H-B shows, I think a Boomerang block on DF could be feasible.
Also, Michael Ouweleen runs the network now in addition to CN and Boomerang, so it's not off the table.

 

[Markus Nelis]

I think those WB/HB shows fit for Boomerang more while I think it's fine for DF to air more modern 2010s shows. Boomerang is meant more for classics than DF. Of course, I'm happy to see these shows but on a wrong network imo.

 

[Moe]

I think those WB/HB shows fit for Boomerang more while I think it's fine for DF to air more modern 2010s shows. Boomerang is meant more for classics than DF. Of course, I'm happy to see these shows but on a wrong network imo.

Discovery Family aired 1980s shows - GI Joe and Transformers that got pulled few years ago and not sure if they returns.