National Geographic Global Networks

National Geographic had moved towards launching a US cable channel in 1982, but backed out. National Geographic Television, National Geographic Society's for profit TV arm, and NBC formed a joint venture, National Geographic Channels (NGC). NGC then partnered with BSkyB to launch on September 1, 1997 National Geographic Channel services in U.K. and Ireland via BSkyB, Scandinavia via Telenor and Australia via Foxtel. At the time, Foxtel and BSkyB were then owned in some form by Rupert Murdoch with Sandy McGovern as president of NGC.^[2] The 50/50 partnership was formed to expand National Geographic Television's productions, head by Tim Kelly, that was producing National Geographic Explorer for broadcast on Nickelodeon.

The original American version of the channel was launched on January 7, 2001 with Laureen Ong as president and Andrew Wilk as head of programming. National Geographic Society took down its museum and built a TV studio. At the time, the NatGeo kept its TV production unit and got a "sweet heart" guarantee production contract of 44 hours per year at an estimated $500,000 per hour of TV.^[3] Additional National Geographic channels in other parts of the world were also launched under the original joint venture.^[4]

In 2007, Ong was replaced by David Lyle, who was moved up from the closed Fox Reality Channel, as CEO and president Howard Owens. In 2010, the company launched Nat Geo Wild channel in the US to go up against competitor Discovery Channel. Ratings dropped as a whole and Lyle and Owens left in 2014. Courtney Monroe moved up from her head marketing post to take over NGC US.^[3]

On 9 September 2015, the Society announced that it would reorganize its media properties and publications into a new company known as National Geographic Partners, which would be 73% owned by 21st Century Fox. This for-profit company would own National Geographic and other magazines, as well as its affiliated television channels — most of which were already owned in joint ventures with Fox.^[4] On 26 October 2016, National Geographic Channel announced the removal of the word "Channel" from its name.^[5]

All of National Geographic-branded television channels are operated as a part of this unit's business. The Society provides most of programming on the channels, while Disney Entertainment units handle distribution and advertisement sales of the channels. In most cases internationally, the National Geographic and Disney channels cross-promote each other. In some territories like Japan, the versions of National Geographic channels are directly operated by Disney.