Is Discovery+ Stealing Your Discovery Shows?
Christina Anstead of Flip or Flop on Discovery+.
Q. I know you say that we still have our Discovery channels after Discovery Plus started. But I know that some shows aren’t available on Discovery anymore because they put them on Discovery Plus. That’s not fair. We pay good money to Comcast for those channels and we should get all the shows we got before. They are also doing new shows with our favorite stars from Discovery and we can’t watch them unless we pay for Discovery Plus! How can they do this to us? — Stella, Dunkirk, Maryland.
Stella, Discovery+, which launched January 4, is a new streaming service that offers programming from Discovery-owned channels such as HGTV, the Food Network, TLC, ID, Animal Planet, and the Discovery Channel itself. The cost is $4.99 a month with ads and $6.99 for an ad-free edition.
Update: Discovery Subscribers Speak Out!
Since it launched, I have received several e-mails from readers saying that Discovery is removing certain shows that were previously available on the Discovery channels and putting them on Discovery+. Similar comments can be found on pay TV community forums and social media sites. The upset viewers say Discovery is trying to force them to add Discovery+ to their already significant monthly pay TV bill to continue watching those shows.
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“Why is ‘exclusive original’ programming available ONLY on the Discovery + stream service?” one Comcast subscriber wrote on the Xfinity community forum. “I pay for Discovery channel. You’re shutting us out and asking us to pay more and get episodes we already have been following for years. You are unfair, Discovery+. Especially during this time when people are watching their income tightly. Shame on you.”
“All new episodes of their shows are going to be Discovery+ exclusives. They will no longer air new original content on their channels,” added another cable TV subscriber in the forum.
“We r losing our shows to Discovery+ I already pay $300 a month, y would I want to pay more for a program that I am already watching and paying for. I think I pay plenty enough,” added another Comcast subscriber.
“Yes, I first noticed this when they put an old series Restaurant: Impossible on Discovery+ exclusively. This, and all those other shows were not announced as Discovery+ exclusives until the last minute when the app was launched. Discovery says that they consider cable subscribers an important source of revenue, but it doesn’t look like it,” said one more cable subscriber in that forum.
Discovery officials have acknowledged that they are launching new shows on Discovery+ that feature personalities and topics found on Discovery-owned networks. But are they removing existing shows and/or episodes from the channels and making them Discovery+ exclusives to entice people to subscribe?
If so, I could understand why pay TV subscribers would cry foul; they’ve been paying to get those shows in their cable and satellite subscriptions.
During my search in viewer forums, and in the e-mails I’ve received, I couldn’t find much evidence of specific shows being mentioned as being removed from the Discovery live channel lineup, or its On Demand catalog. However, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened so I asked Discovery’s communications department if Discovery+ is taking shows or episodes away from Discovery.
Oddly, a Discovery spokesperson seemed to dodge the question:
“We are experimenting with some show premieres on Discovery+ during a brief window during the service’s launch,” Discovery’s Cara Brugnoli said yesterday via e-mail. “That said, we remain committed to serving our pay-TV fans with the shows and talent they love and value. The vast majority of Discovery content premieres on linear, with current seasons largely exclusive to our traditional pay-TV offering.”
That didn’t exactly answer my question so I responded immediately via e-mail:
“But are some shows no longer available on Discovery channels because they have been moved to Discovery+?”
She did not respond. I asked her again via e-mail this morning. She has not responded as of 3 p.m. ET today.
They would seem to confirm that, at least, new episodes of long-running Discovery channel shows are playing first on Discovery+. It’s still unclear if past episodes, or entire seasons, have been removed from the pay TV Discovery and added to Discovery+.
The TV Answer Man will continue to investigate whether shows are being removed and will report back here if we get more information, or a new response from Cara Brugnoli.
Until then, Stella, happy viewing, and stay safe!
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it’s not just Discovery but also Travel Channel already they premiered Kindred Spirits and Expedition Bigfoot on cable then said want to see the rest of the season? then you gotta pay us $5 a month they can go to hell
Every time I watched one of my paranormal shows this past week there was a bug in the lower right of the screen saying “Such and such program is moving exclusively to Discovery+”. You can’t get more blatant than that. Shows I’ve seen that are moving include:
Ghost Adventures
Kindred Spirits
Ghost Nation
Paranormal Caught on Camera
Mountain Monsters
I have cut the cord and am really happy with the service. But I have the opposite problem. I thought this service was primarily for cord cutters and would have the current season of my favorite Food Network show “The Kitchen “. But it doesn’t….but not having it will NOT make me go back. Saving too much money…..
Just realized IDGO got rid of most of one of my favorite shows, Evil Lives Here. It appears that seasons 1-7 are now gone, and only season 8 is still there. Disappointing, we are paying for this already through our cable provider and we are not yet ready to cut the cord.
Same problem here. Have been streaming Home Town on watch.HGTV with my cable subscription and now that Discovery + has launched, I can’t watch any of the previous seasons. NOT HAPPY.
Totally agree! I plan on cutting the cord soon and Discovery + as much as I love the shows on the Discovery Networks, Discovery+ will not be making the cut for streaming services of choice. This is not the way to retain customers who have watched your networks for years and years and made your shows successes.
Travel Channel is owned by Discovery. Shows from all of their channels are moving to Discovery+
If you ask me descovory+ is destroying tv every time you turn around there is another show they are streaming exclusively on D+ and I do not use the internet for entertainment I don’t think it was ment for that but greedy money hungry executives couldn’t keep they’re hands out of the till think about it thousands of channels already available on television free music all day long on the radio not to mention the millions of achers of world to explore and see how much more entertained can you be get information and shop on line but leave tv on tv where it belongs descovory should be ashamed for trying to use our favorite shows as leverage to elicit more revenue are they not rich enough what about those of us who are already stretched to the limit do we deserve not to get the little bit of pleasure we get from watching our favorite shows we wait all week to watch!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DON’T BE THAT NETWORK DESCOVERY!!!
Same seems to go for the HGTV app. Literally yesterday there were MANY more (maybe dozens more) shows than are available when I just checked the app today. Guess I’m not going to be able to finish binge-watching “Mediterranean Life” or any of the Holmes-related ones… So frustrating. There wasn’t even a warning! Greedy jerks. I’d appreciate it if you could look into it from this angle too.
Rotten.
Will the new episodes eventually premiere on the original Discovery? Why didn’t they just keep their old platform and ask for a dollar a month? More people would have agreed to that vs. the expenses they put on themselves with the new platform (that is no way near Netflix) and then alienate everyone of their followers in the process.
The expense they have for most of their reality shows has to be minimal, especially compared to Netflix original content/movies, and they still want to compare themselves. The people of the show practically film themselves and they probably pay the producers rock bottom as well.
I will not budge, no matter how much I enjoy the shows. If we start paying them this money, there will be no stop to this behavior and they will continue to raise the price with other networks following their example.
Boycott and stop the greed.
I enjoy the new new shows on Investigation Discovery and they may disappear soon also. Too bad since their new streaming device will never compare to Netflix which I do watch. The Discovery family is part of what I pay for each month so too bad, might have to read more mysteries to make up for the eventual loss or maybe they will find that they made a financial blunder.
Me anf my family have been watching mountain monsters since they came out and now we cant watch them bc they moved all new shows to discovery plus and its upsetting bc we pay so much for our bills and now they want us to pay to watch our shows we watched for years its not right
Discovery is moving most all of their various channels new episodes “exclusively” to their discovery plus platform, including The Dead Files, Expedition Bigfoot, Kindred Spirits, Ghost Adventures from their Travel Channel. Also shows from ID Channel. A&E, Science Channel, etc. For us folks that live in rural areas like myself, we can’t even get streaming platforms to work due to only having satellite internet. We have Directv and like lots of people, pay to have these channels and now discovery is sticking it to us. It’s not right. You’re the only site I’ve seen talking about it. Thank you!
This has made me soooo angry. ID is what I watch the most and now I have to see pop up announcements like “see new eps of The Murder Tapes on discovery+”….so I check and there are NO eps of the show upcoming on ID. I pay A LOT for cable so I see this as the worst kind of greed, and I will no longer watch any Discovery channels. Hello, netflix crime shows!!!!
I don’t like the idea I can’t see my shows on discovery anymore, I already pay direct tv and now I’m not able to see my programs anymore!!
ID has taken a bunch of shows off. So disappointed.
Agreed, we have dish and all of our most loved shows are on the discovery shows. Travel channels ghost shows like ghost adventures…no more new episodes. They keep advertising the Cecil Hotel investigation only on discovery plus. We are a disabled couple barely surviving on ssdi! How cruel to do this to us! Even more so during these insane times! My blood pressure is rising right now because I am so pissed off…better stop for now! This is just so cruel & unfair!
Sorry for my mis-spells. The discovery channels had all of my favorite shows. Life is hard and being disabled, I really looked foward to escaping reality watching Paranormal caught on camera and many other shows. It just goes to show, the rich have no heart. All they care about is money and don’t care who they hurt to get it!
Yes, my favorite shows! grrrrr!
I understand they are in it to make money. What bothers me the most is they won’t just divulge what they are doing regarding their programming and then let people decide. If all their programming is moving to discovery plus it will actually be cheaper for me to drop Philo and watch it on discovery, but we can’t seem to get a straight answer.
Like many have said I already pay for direct TV. I will not pay even more on top of what I am paying already.
Just another show on ID that they played the first ep to “hook” us, then announce we have to get D+ to see the rest of the eps….”Onivision.” This is so sleazy and being done in such a strong-armed way. I can’t find anyone to call or email to complain but I don’t think they care. Grrrrrr!
I as well feel that this is a cheap shot. I watched many of the ghost shows and spin offs. Expedition Bigfoot and The Goldrush spinoffs as well. I pay through the nose to Comcast to have these channels. Now I might as well either cut the cable and pay for a bunch of streaming services to make up for all the other channels we watch, or just become one of the “former” viewers of these shows. Its not fair to the shows performers and producers either. They may not have known this was coming when they filmed the shows. I’m sure that they are hearing it loud and clear from their viewers. It’s not their fault and many of them are probably pissed about this too. They probably have been warned to say nothing. I have seen that some are complaining to the FCC and the FTC about this. We’ll see where that goes.
I’m with you Jennifer!!! On a fixed income and can barely afford the cable company I use. First it was Peacock taking some of my Premier League soccer matches off NBCSN and putting them there and charging $4.99 a month and NOW it’s all my paranormal shows leaving the Travel Channel channel and I would have to pay $4.99 for that too??? I don’t think so!!! I love those shows and I was already paying for them all!!! Yes, my blood pressure too is rising!!! And I’m on medication!!!
I left a comment on The Ghost Adventurers site. I’m sure the guys probably knew nothing about this; at least I like to think they didn’t. I hope they and all the other people on all the paranormal shows know how we feel about this extortion!!! I also pay too much for Cox Cable. Not fair!!!
Our complaints have nothing to do with the so-called new original programming, but focus solely on shows that have already been airing on the Discovery network of channels. Several weeks prior to launching their streaming service, they aired a pretty generic commercial about Discovery+ during nearly every commercial break on all of their channels. Nothing was ever mentioned about new episodes of already established series moving exclusively to +. The ads made their streaming service sound like an amazing addition to what we all already have. Then when + went live, everybody was completely blindsided by their true motivation. And from some Facebook posts of stars who appear on these very shows, they were all blindsided by this as well.
So a new episode of an already established series was aired on the same channel as always. During the first half of this new episode, small ads for Discovery+ appeared in the corner of the screen. Then somewhere around halfway through the program, a popup ad stating that any new episodes of this show going forward would air EXCLUSIVELY on Discovery+! So if you are enjoying this new episode and can’t wait to see more new episodes, you had better quickly subscribe to Discovery+. Very, very shady and unscrupulous! Maybe not the exact definition of “bait & switch”, but pretty darn close. I have never seen any of the other streaming services operate in a manner like this.
I don’t care how cheap it is, and it is very inexpensive…for now. What they did was wrong, and how they did it was pretty unethical and very underhanded. While I personally refuse to give into their devious actions, I am sure that the executives of Discovery+ could not care less about me or anyone else who chooses to stand firm against them. But hey, I can still watch countless reruns of my favorite series anytime I want to!
Totally agree with you all. I was so pissed when I first realized what was going on. We are the ones that made these shows successful and now we can’t see them unless we pay more money???? I already pay an astronomical amount for cable every month. I find it such a shame and am really disappointed in some of the stars like Zak Bagans & Mike Rowe.
With everything that is going on in the world and everyones financial situation…it’s so shameful to have Discovery+ and take away shows that everyone have enjoyed to watch on Discovery, Trvl, etc for years..and pay more to watch the new seasons. So unfair
What they did was outrageous. I hope my boycott and the boycott of others has some kind of punishing effect. These people should be ashamed.
It seems particularly tone deaf and greedy to move paying customers’ favorite shows to a higher premium platform during a pandemic that has caused so much economic stress. Shows how far removed these folks are from the common folk. They don’t deserve your patronage.
I’m on board with everything that’s being said bills are too large anyhow. I have emphenzema and cold all I do is watch my shows not any longer no more pennies from me. Is there a solution probably not
Totally agree !!! Also Ghost Nation, American Monster, all the shows that have started new seasons. They are showing one new episode and showing in the bottom right corner that all new episodes are moving. This is not fair. Is it legal? Seems like they’re trying to double dip.
Amy Bruni of Kindred Spirits has said all new shows will be on Discovery+ and added it was not their choice. Seems clear enough to me and NO…it is not fair. I also pay over $300 for cable service and all the wife’s favorite shows have disappeared.
It is incredibly frustrating. Hgtv moved a few shows to be exclusively on discovery plus. They’ve even moved the ability to replay or watch old episodes. Basically stealing something we had been paying for and moving it to a new network requiring us to pay more to see the same content. I hope Discovery pays the price in lost revenue
Why are you taking all my shows off and passing it on to discovery + ( mountain monsters is just one of them) I have directv and pay $200 monthly. Now if I want to see them I have to pay more. It’s not fair that this is happening. People are suffering for a year since this COVID-19 and now your added more wood to the fire. More money that we don’t have. I am totally disgusted. Something just has to change.
I will not add to our cable BILL just to occasionally view shows that I THOUGHT We Were Already paying for in our $367 monthly CABLE subscription. I cut the cord once before and it appears that I am headed to no CABLE!!!
Comcast and AT&T both have data caps, so going all streaming isn’t an option for many. I think most Discovery shows are the kind you want to keep in the background, so the live stream is most critical. You cannot do that with a streaming app without using up all of your data allowance.
I can see the argument that this is an unfair practice by ISPs, but the heaviest strain by far on internet services come from streaming, and Discovery is just adding to the load. I think tech companies will lose the net neutrality fight and streaming services like Netflix, etc. will be deliberately slowed by the ISPs. Discovery – having abandoned their live streams – will be left with a crippled app.
I am a fan of Ghost Adventures since they first aired. I follow the crew on Twitter so Zak Bagans himself tweeted that Ghost Adventures is, in fact, moving exclusively to discovery+ and will no longer be airing new episodes/seasons on cable or satellite companies. It doesn’t get any plainly when the creator/producer of the show confirms it. I just wish they’d give us a list of shows from all networks within discovery+ that will be taken away from cable/satellite companies so we could know what we will no longer be watching or if it would even be worth paying hundreds of dollars a month for cable/satellite.
From what I understand it was not actually the shows creator’s/producer’s idea. This came from Discovery and the Networks decision. I think it has a lot to do with DirecTV/AT&T. After AT&T tried to screw with Viacom’s networks and took awhile for that to be settled Discovery probably sees it pointless to deal with AT&T, I know I do. Can’t stand that company but I love DirecTV. Problem is with the economy, we will actually be removing some services and downgrading packages because AT&T will be increasing the premium rates for DirecTv after this discovery+ issue. I think that the shows just agree with it because they’d rather continue with their shows than have their shows cancelled.
I lived without the shows stolen from us by Discovery + before I ever started watching them and I can live without them now!
Forget you!
I don’t do Twitter so I wasn’t aware that Zak and the guys already knew before we did that they were leaving! I watched the very first one they did where the brick went flying across the room! Also Ghost Nation when they were Ghost Hunters and the guys worked for Roto Router. Every time I saw the Roto Router truck, I always shouted TAPS! Some drivers thought I was nuts, others just laughed!!! I also love The Dead Files, as well As Expedition Unknown, when Josh used to be on SyFy. All the good shows are leaving! I’m moving to another house soon and I will have to consider what to install to watch shows. I already get too many channels and shows that I don’t care a flying fig about! I’m on a fixed income and I live to watch the new ones. Oh well, all good things must end…..
This will be the end of cable. Comcast removed TCM from the package I signed up for and then removed STARZ. Most of the UFC content moved to ESPN+, which I refuse to pay extra for, and now all the Discovery shows are going? So what is the point of paying for cable? 99 channels of junk that I don’t want? Cord cutting is looking like the way to go.
I am on Dish TV and all the channels I have are on Discovery plus. I have a 2 year contract.but they took some of the shows from each one.and my future shows that I am paying for.and it says it right on there commercials.i filed with the Better Business Bureau. Thats what everyone needs to do..and no alot.thousands live out in the country and we do not half Internet and I have to have that to get Discovery plus.but why would I pay more for what I am already paying for now but not getting.
What Discovery did was greedy and sneaky and a slap in the face to all of us who are already paying for their channels on cable. They kept touting their new streaming service, but it wasn’t until it was almost up and running that they quietly dropped the bomb that if we still wanted to have access to the shows we’d been watching—and paying for—on cable for years, it would only cost us five bucks a month. So take that, loyal subscribers! Very bad business!
When the money-hungry, soulless skin-bags at Discovery started advertising Discovery+, I was initially excited. I thought TLC/Destination America was adding new paranormal series, Food Network was adding new shows, and that Investigation Discovery and Discovery were doing the same. To my shock and disgust, they’re moving all of my favorite shows EXCLUSIVELY to the streaming service. What?! We are now expected to pay the premium of $6.99 for ad-free service for basic cable shows that we’re already paying for in our ridiculously expensive cable/internet packages?! NO WAY. Go to hell.
I concur! This deplorable man will be starting tomatoes and other stuff soon and will stay very busy between that and work. It really is sad that we’re being expected to pay for what we’re already paying for.
I agree with all of these comments! I WILL NOT pay more so I can be charged to watch what I already pay for. This is double charging. I hope this little experiment is a total flop and Discovery gets the message. Shameful price gouging !!!! Everybody wants to be a billionaire nowadays.
Totally agree with the anger and frustration of honest hard working Americans. We live on a fixed income and television is our entertainment in the winter months. The channels that they are messing with are the ones we watch to get away from all of the junk that airs. Obviously most of the people do also. Just like most of the entertainment industry…it’s about the almighty dollar! To hell with loyal subscribers that put the money in their pockets to begin with. The world is upside down in many ways……call your subscriber and demand a price reduction since they have removed the package content that you already pay for. I hope they SINK!!! If they won’t give discount cut the cord. I lived a life before cable I can do it again.
I already pay enough to Dish every month, and I refuse to pay anymore. This sets a terrible precedent. If other Networks start doing this too, TV will really become unaffordable. I refuse to pay for something twice. Love watching Gold Rush, but I can find other channels to watch. or, find something else to do that is more productive. I stopped watching the NFL games because of the players anti-American protests, and I can stop watching Discovery too. The buck stops here!
I agree their greed has gone to far