FOX Funny, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild to exit Foxtel.
Updated: Three more subscription channels to farewell Foxtel in March.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Subscription
Three subscription TV channels FOX Funny, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, will cease broadcasting on the Foxtel platform on March 1st.
Disney-owned National Geographic has been part of Foxtel since 2008, while Nat Geo Wild began in 2010. Disney+ currently airs National Geographic content.
FOX Funny was originally 111 HITS in 2008 before rebrands 111 funny, 111 Greats and 111, and its current incarnation since 2019.
“FOX Funny will close on March 1 with its line up shifting to FOX8, FOX Comedy or On Demand,” a Foxtel spokesperson told TV Tonight.
“Foxtel and Binge continue to be home to a number of the world’s biggest comedy series including Friends, Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Young Sheldon, Barry, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sex and the City, The Office, Parks and Recreation and more. We have more than 3,000 hours of comedy content across Foxtel and Binge with more new series to be announced in the coming months.
E! channel also exits Foxtel on February 1st.
TV Tonight understands a new channel will be launching soon to replace FOX Funny.
Updated.:
The Nat Geo channels will be available on Fetch until March 31, after which they will no longer be available in Australia. Fetch is currently investigating replacement options.
18 Responses
Maybe Foxtel should get rid of junk channel History as well.
Would be nice if TCM returns to Foxtel
Disney really is consolidating it’s content. First they removed Disney/Junior/XD and Disney content from the Foxtel Movies suite, and now this year the adult animations from Fox8 and removing Nat Geo and Wild. Foxtel didn’t have much choice but to move sitcoms from Fox Funny to Fox8 to fill the gaps, but Foxtel seems to be losing more and more with the launch of these streamers which ultimately reduces the saleability of Foxtel as a service.
Wow. This is going to be a terrible lost for Foxtel losing a long time flagship brand like National Geographic.
I remembered when it launched on Optus Vision sometime in 2001-2002.
I’m very certain it was on Foxtel even before that because Nat Geo started the partnership with News Corp in 1997.
Not as bad as fetch loosing 13th Street and syfy because foxtel made some dealwith nbc universal
Report here only ever mentions foxtel it’s almost like fetch doesn’t exist, i understand that fetch dont have fox funny but fetch certainly has national geographic and nat wild
Will file on Fetch when confirmed.
Thank you very much
National Geographic was on Foxtel (and the old Austar) before 2008. Remember the channel in the late 90s.
Had Foxtel top tier since 1995 and seen so many channels come and but I’ve always maintained the belief they are experts at rearranging the deck chairs. Now they have the IQ5 they are obviously to me pushing users to subscribe to Disney+. and the other streaming services that come with IQ. They are launching MSNBC and NBC News Now in March. (not much to compensate the loose of the other channels). I’ve read hundreds of complaints on socials about all this switching, rearranging, and deleting. Yet they maintain it’s for a better customer experience.
Been a Foxtel Platinum subscriber since day one. 2 boxes. They are getting ever closer to losing me to Kayo and Stan. Just give me a little push further and it will be goodbye, and I will bet I wont be on my own. Just been a constant loss of channels all the time. All take and very little give.
Also a 2 box Foxtel platinum subscriber, and in much the same mind, it won’t take much more for me to junk Foxtel or its streamers. If Warner launch HBO Max here that’ll be me done with Foxtel, as 90% of the content I have Foxtel for is now available, exclusively or otherwise, with a streaming service (Disney, Netflix, etc.) at a substantially cheaper price.
I thought Discovery and TLC would be the next to jump ship to form Discovery+ in Australia.
Could happen yet, in the USA HBO Max and Discovery+ are merging as one in the USA Spring, so any time from around March 21st – June 21st onwards, the latest from over there is it will just be called Max (as of Dec 06th 2022). So perhaps we may end up with something like that, however at the time of the announcement WBD chief David Zaslav said that other regions would follow later, Latin America in the subsequent fall, European markets in early 2024, Asian-Pacific markets in the middle of 2024, and then new markets will be served that fall (USA Fall is around September 23 – December 21).
Will Nat Geo & Nat Geo Wild continue on Fetch TV after March 1st?
So a net loss of two channels and yet the subscription prices for Foxtel don’t change. A joke.
My experience with Foxtel is if you don’t complain they do nothing. Have an ongoing issue with them, yesterday I got a phone call regarding an update and I also told them I was not a happy customer with the loss of the channels they are binning but I’m still expected to pay the same. I have been given $100 of my subscription as a goodwill gesture which they also did with my on going issue too.
Foxtel have no chance if Warner launch HBO Max and take out Showcase/Boxsets, Cartoon Network now all of the Discovery Networks. Not to mention all the non-HBO Warner Bros Television that’s scattered all over their “Fox [Genre]” channels.
Paramount+ could also get more aggressive and pull MTV/Nickelodeon and their content from the genre channels.
As can BBC/UKTV for Britbox.
Universal already gone. What’s left then, Sky News/Fox Sports/Fox News US? Not enough.
I see a Foxtel/Seven merger coming towards the end of the decade. Especially if the Newscorp & Fox re-merger happens in the US. Shareholders over there will want the down-under-deadweight gone.