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64-407: Discovery Life is an American cable television network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery . Launched on February 1, 2011 as Discovery Fit & Health , it was the result of the merger of Discovery Health Channel and FitTV (following the former's replacement in its channel space by OWN ), and focuses on reality programming dealing with "life events". Its programming consists of reruns drawn from

128-415: A 20-minute aerobic conditioning workout at the top of the hour featuring Tamilee Webb; a segment on healthy living; a Body by Jake workout starting at the bottom of the hour; and "Fitness Plus", a home shopping segment for fitness items and equipment. In 1994, Cable Health Club received new sponsors and minority partners, Reebok International (its first charter advertiser) and Liberty Media . By this time,

192-560: A continuous preview of the Cable Health Club on August 20, 1993. Beginning August 31 of that year, the channel would be available in a half-hour continuous programming format to cable system operators for free. In October, the channel moved to 24-hour programming. Jake Steinfeld , who had starred on the network's Big Brother Jake , hosted its first program and was a constant presence on the channel in its early years. The original formatting of an hour on Cable Health Club included

256-405: A dedicated analog circuit-switched service. Other advantages include better voice quality and integration to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network providing cheap or unlimited nationwide and international calling. In many cases, digital cable telephone service is separate from cable modem service being offered by many cable companies and does not rely on Internet Protocol (IP) traffic or

320-436: A given location, cable distribution lines must be available on the local utility poles or underground utility lines. Coaxial cable brings the signal to the customer's building through a service drop , an overhead or underground cable. If the subscriber's building does not have a cable service drop, the cable company will install one. The standard cable used in the U.S. is RG-6 , which has a 75 ohm impedance , and connects with

384-455: A healthy living. AHN had a deal with Clearwater, Florida -based Home Shopping Network to provide orders and shipping infrastructure. For cable operators, carriage deals included a small percentage of advertising and shopping revenue. With an initial cable audience of 200,000 subscribers, America's Health Network had reached 700,000 subscribers by May 1996 and 6 million by the time of the sale of its first majority owners. However, cable carriage

448-543: A high elevation. At the outset, cable systems only served smaller communities without television stations of their own, and which could not easily receive signals from stations in cities because of distance or hilly terrain. In Canada, however, communities with their own signals were fertile cable markets, as viewers wanted to receive American signals. Rarely, as in the college town of Alfred, New York , U.S. cable systems retransmitted Canadian channels. Although early ( VHF ) television receivers could receive 12 channels (2–13),

512-466: A higher rate. At the local headend, the feed signals from the individual television channels are received by dish antennas from communication satellites . Additional local channels, such as local broadcast television stations, educational channels from local colleges, and community access channels devoted to local governments ( PEG channels) are usually included on the cable service. Commercial advertisements for local business are also inserted in

576-405: A local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be a priority, but technology allowed low-priority signals to be placed on such channels by synchronizing their blanking intervals . TVs were unable to reconcile these blanking intervals and the slight changes due to travel through a medium, causing ghosting . The bandwidth of the amplifiers also

640-463: A microwave-based system, may be used instead. Coaxial cables are capable of bi-directional carriage of signals as well as the transmission of large amounts of data . Cable television signals use only a portion of the bandwidth available over coaxial lines. This leaves plenty of space available for other digital services such as cable internet , cable telephony and wireless services, using both unlicensed and licensed spectra. Broadband internet access

704-564: A rarity, found in an ever-dwindling number of markets. Analog television sets are accommodated, their tuners mostly obsolete and dependent entirely on the set-top box. Cable television is mostly available in North America , Europe , Australia , Asia and South America . Cable television has had little success in Africa , as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas. Multichannel multipoint distribution service ,

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768-455: A receiver box. The cable company will provide set-top boxes based on the level of service a customer purchases, from basic set-top boxes with a standard-definition picture connected through the standard coaxial connection on the TV, to high-definition wireless digital video recorder (DVR) receivers connected via HDMI or component . Older analog television sets are cable ready and can receive

832-452: A senior official. This turmoil spurred reviews of company strategies and the cancellation of some transactions, including the sale of the AHN stake. New York real estate tycoon Howard Milstein offered a bridge loan, which was accepted. Belo's stake eventually was brought back by AHN. An investment group of former Columbia/HCA officials, including Richard Scott and David Vandewater, took control of

896-766: A series of signal amplifiers and line extenders. These devices carry the signal to customers via passive RF devices called taps. The very first cable networks were operated locally, notably in 1936 by Rediffusion in London in the United Kingdom and the same year in Berlin in Germany, notably for the Olympic Games , and from 1948 onwards in the United States and Switzerland. This type of local cable network

960-417: A special telephone interface at the customer's premises that converts the analog signals from the customer's in-home wiring into a digital signal, which is then sent on the local loop (replacing the analog last mile , or plain old telephone service (POTS) to the company's switching center, where it is connected to the public switched telephone network ( PSTN ). The biggest obstacle to cable telephone service

1024-521: A toll free number to register support for the channel to be 24 hours with responses forwarded to Cox. By April 1997, the Cable Health Club was renamed Fit TV. In June 1997, IFE was acquired by a joint venture of Fox Entertainment Group and Saban Entertainment ; the companies were primarily targeting its sister network The Family Channel . America's Health Network was in separate operation from FitTV from March 1996 until 1999. The channel

1088-605: A type F connector . The cable company's portion of the wiring usually ends at a distribution box on the building exterior, and built-in cable wiring in the walls usually distributes the signal to jacks in different rooms to which televisions are connected. Multiple cables to different rooms are split off the incoming cable with a small device called a splitter . There are two standards for cable television; older analog cable, and newer digital cable which can carry data signals used by digital television receivers such as high-definition television (HDTV) equipment. All cable companies in

1152-422: Is achieved over coaxial cable by using cable modems to convert the network data into a type of digital signal that can be transferred over coaxial cable. One problem with some cable systems is the older amplifiers placed along the cable routes are unidirectional thus in order to allow for uploading of data the customer would need to use an analog telephone modem to provide for the upstream connection. This limited

1216-482: Is the need for nearly 100% reliable service for emergency calls. One of the standards available for digital cable telephony, PacketCable , seems to be the most promising and able to work with the quality of service (QOS) demands of traditional analog plain old telephone service (POTS) service. The biggest advantage to digital cable telephone service is similar to the advantage of digital cable, namely that data can be compressed, resulting in much less bandwidth used than

1280-753: The CBS medical drama series Chicago Hope on a semi-regular basis. DHC also aired fitness-related programming, most of which later spun off to its sister network FitTV . DHC won its first Daytime Emmy in 2004 for its original series about adoptive families, Adoption Stories . FitTV was an American pay television channel, owned by Discovery Communications . The channel focused on fitness and exercise-related programming. FitTV offered programming with such fitness celebrities as Cathe Friedrich , Sharon Mann, Gilad Janklowicz, Marilu Henner , Tamilee Webb and others. International Family Entertainment (IFE) introduced

1344-611: The CNN/SI cable network (which would fold in 2002) and the Game Show Network . By June 1999, Scott and Vandewater had reduced their stake in America's Health. On September 12, 1999, Fox Cable Networks Group bought America's Health Network, owned by Rick Scott & David Vandewater, and merged it with FitTV, which Fox Cable already owned. The resulting network was named The Health Network . In December, Fox Cable sold 50% of

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1408-492: The DVB-C , DVB-C2 stream to IP for distribution of TV over IP network in the home. Many cable companies offer internet access through DOCSIS . In the most common system, multiple television channels (as many as 500, although this varies depending on the provider's available channel capacity) are distributed to subscriber residences through a coaxial cable , which comes from a trunkline supported on utility poles originating at

1472-474: The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) at the beginning of the year; the company noted that Discovery Health's programming still had loyal viewership, even as the network was being wound down in favor of OWN. Initially, the channel's programming was similar to what was being carried by Discovery Health, but with a fitness-oriented block in the morning featuring FitTV programs. Discovery Health Channel

1536-616: The high band 7–13 of North American television frequencies . Some operators as in Cornwall, Ontario , used a dual distribution network with Channels 2–13 on each of the two cables. During the 1980s, United States regulations not unlike public, educational, and government access (PEG) created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. As cable penetration increased, numerous cable-only TV stations were launched, many with their own news bureaus that could provide more immediate and more localized content than that provided by

1600-409: The "FitTV" name, as Discovery recently owned its own health channel, Discovery Health. In March 2006, New York-based Cablevision dropped the channel from its systems, resulting in the loss of some three million subscribers (down to 35 million). In January 2011, the channel's carriage remained significantly lower than most cable networks, only holding a reach of 50 million homes. On January 15, 2015,

1664-496: The Belo stake to Columbia/HCA Health Care Corp. for $ 50 million was soon proposed. Columbia wanted to put AHN in its nearly 500 hospitals and surgery centers, plus many more outpatient clinics. However, during this time period, federal investigations over its billing practices; government raids; charges of Columbia officials with conspiracy and fraud; and changes in management at Columbia/HCA "turned [the company] upside down", according to

1728-507: The Crib ), and sex ( Sex Sent Me to the ER ). The channel does not currently originate any first-run programming. Cable television A cable channel (sometimes known as a cable network ) is a television network available via cable television. Many of the same channels are distributed through satellite television . Alternative terms include non-broadcast channel or programming service ,

1792-515: The Internet. Traditional cable television providers and traditional telecommunication companies increasingly compete in providing voice, video and data services to residences. The combination of television, telephone and Internet access is commonly called triple play , regardless of whether CATV or telcos offer it. More than 400,000 television service subscribers. Reebok International Too Many Requests If you report this error to

1856-485: The United States have switched to or are in the course of switching to digital cable television since it was first introduced in the late 1990s. Most cable companies require a set-top box ( cable converter box ) or a slot on one's TV set for conditional access module cards to view their cable channels, even on newer televisions with digital cable QAM tuners, because most digital cable channels are now encrypted, or scrambled , to reduce cable service theft . A cable from

1920-404: The basic selection. By subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels. Large cable companies used addressable descramblers to limit access to premium channels for customers not subscribing to higher tiers, however the above magazines often published workarounds for that technology as well. During the 1990s, the pressure to accommodate

1984-563: The cable box itself, these midband channels were used for early incarnations of pay TV , e.g. The Z Channel (Los Angeles) and HBO but transmitted in the clear i.e. not scrambled as standard TV sets of the period could not pick up the signal nor could the average consumer de-tune the normal stations to be able to receive it. Once tuners that could receive select mid-band and super-band channels began to be incorporated into standard television sets, broadcasters were forced to either install scrambling circuitry or move these signals further out of

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2048-429: The cable company's local distribution facility, called the headend . Many channels can be transmitted through one coaxial cable by a technique called frequency division multiplexing . At the headend, each television channel is translated to a different frequency . By giving each channel a different frequency slot on the cable, the separate television signals do not interfere with each other. At an outdoor cable box on

2112-515: The cable to send data from the customer box to the cable headend, for advanced features such as requesting pay-per-view shows or movies, cable internet access , and cable telephone service . The downstream channels occupy a band of frequencies from approximately 50 MHz to 1 GHz, while the upstream channels occupy frequencies of 5 to 42 MHz. Subscribers pay with a monthly fee. Subscribers can choose from several levels of service, with premium packages including more channels but costing

2176-675: The case of no local CBS or ABC station being available – rebroadcast the programming from a nearby affiliate but fill in with its own news and other community programming to suit its own locale. Many live local programs with local interests were subsequently created all over the United States in most major television markets in the early 1980s. This evolved into today's many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies and miniseries . Cable specialty channels , starting with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, diversified further, and narrowcasting became common. By

2240-606: The channel to WebMD . By the start of the year 2000, The Health Network reached 17.5 million homes. At the start of 2000, the station began new headquarters in Los Angeles, and about half of its Orlando workforce was laid off, leaving 40 people out of work. The station also ran supplementary offices in New York and Nashville. At the time, The Health Network stated it was moving more of its production to New York and Los Angeles so it could feature more celebrities on its lineup. In

2304-582: The channel was re-branded as Discovery Life. The rebranding was meant to reflect a broadening of the network's concept targeting women aged 25–54, focusing upon life events and "the drama inherent in our everyday lives". The network's schedule consists primarily of library programs (including series and specials) from TLC . Programs span the topics of medical emergencies ( Untold Stories of the ER , Mystery Diagnosis ), addiction and mental illness ( Cracking Addiction , Hoarding: Buried Alive ), pregnancy and childbirth ( A Baby Story , Outrageous Births: Tales from

2368-611: The channel was received in one million homes and carried for two hours a day on the Family Channel. By November 1994, the Club was sharing a channel with Prime Sports Northwest on Seattle cable. In January 1997, Cox Communications paired the service with Home Team Sports between the hours of 5:30–11 a.m. The service took out full-page ads in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper through May 4, requesting viewers to call

2432-508: The chosen channel into the TV set on Channel 2, 3 or 4. Initially, UHF broadcast stations were at a disadvantage because the standard TV sets in use at the time were unable to receive their channels. With the passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1964, all new television sets were required to include a UHF tuner, nonetheless, it would still take a few years for UHF stations to become competitive. Before being added to

2496-415: The fact that the descrambling circuitry was for a time present in these tuners, depriving the cable operator of much of their revenue, such cable-ready tuners are rarely used now – requiring a return to the set-top boxes used from the 1970s onward. The digital television transition in the United States has put all signals, broadcast and cable, into digital form, rendering analog cable television service

2560-435: The fall of 2000, it very nearly relaunched as WebMD Television, with new programs and the removal of the AHN studio program library from its schedule; that plan was put on hold, and Fox received the 50% of the channel it had sold back from WebMD, which had lost $ 2 billion in 2000. On September 1, 2001, Discovery Communications bought The Health Network for $ 255 million in cash and equity. On January 1, 2004, Discovery reinstated

2624-457: The growing array of offerings resulted in digital transmission that made more efficient use of the VHF signal capacity; fibre optics was common to carry signals into areas near the home, where coax could carry higher frequencies over the short remaining distance. Although for a time in the 1980s and 1990s, television receivers and VCRs were equipped to receive the mid-band and super-band channels. Due to

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2688-431: The growth of streaming alternatives including its parent company's Max , and has generally been depreciated by Warner Bros. Discovery in current retransmission consent negotiations with cable and streaming providers. On January 17, 2011, Discovery Communications announced that FitTV would be re-launched as Discovery Fit & Health on February 1, 2011. Its formation was the result of Discovery Health 's replacement with

2752-450: The headend, the electrical signal is translated into an optical signal and sent through the fiber. The fiber trunkline goes to several distribution hubs , from which multiple fibers fan out to carry the signal to boxes called optical nodes in local communities. At the optical node, the optical signal is translated back into an electrical signal and carried by coaxial cable distribution lines on utility poles, from which cables branch out to

2816-460: The jack in the wall is attached to the input of the box, and an output cable from the box is attached to the television, usually the RF-IN or composite input on older TVs. Since the set-top box only decodes the single channel that is being watched, each television in the house requires a separate box. Some unencrypted channels, usually traditional over-the-air broadcast networks, can be displayed without

2880-490: The late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, some of which by this time had expanded beyond 35 channels. By the mid-1980s in Canada, cable operators were allowed by the regulators to enter into distribution contracts with cable networks on their own. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above

2944-678: The latter being mainly used in legal contexts. The abbreviation CATV is used in the US for cable television and originally stood for community antenna television , from cable television's origins in 1948; in areas where over-the-air TV reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large community antennas were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. In 1968, 6.4% of Americans had cable television. The number increased to 7.5% in 1978. By 1988, 52.8% of all households were using cable. The number further increased to 62.4% in 1994. To receive cable television at

3008-562: The libraries of its predecessors and TLC . As of November 2023, Discovery Life is available to approximately 24,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2017 peak of 47,000,000 households. Along with American Heroes Channel , Boomerang , Cooking Channel , Destination America , Discovery Family , Science Channel , Discovery Life is among the less prevalent networks of Warner Bros. Discovery. In recent years, Discovery Life has lost carriage with

3072-423: The maximum number of channels that could be broadcast in one city was 7: channels 2, 4, either 5 or 6, 7, 9, 11 and 13, as receivers at the time were unable to receive strong (local) signals on adjacent channels without distortion. (There were frequency gaps between 4 and 5, and between 6 and 7, which allowed both to be used in the same city). As equipment improved, all twelve channels could be utilized, except where

3136-451: The nearest network newscast. Such stations may use similar on-air branding as that used by the nearby broadcast network affiliate, but the fact that these stations do not broadcast over the air and are not regulated by the FCC, their call signs are meaningless. These stations evolved partially into today's over-the-air digital subchannels, where a main broadcast TV station e.g. NBC 37* would – in

3200-556: The network in late 1997, and live series resumed. During this time, another minority investor in the channel was Access Health, a referral service. On June 16, 1998, AHN presented the first human birth carried live over the Internet, from Orlando's Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children . The birth brought AHN major national and worldwide media attention and was even the focus of an editorial cartoon two days later in USA Today . By this time, it reached 8 million cable homes, comparable to

3264-408: The old analog cable without a set-top box. To receive digital cable channels on an analog television set, even unencrypted ones, requires a different type of box, a digital television adapter supplied by the cable company or purchased by the subscriber. Another new distribution method that takes advantage of the low cost high quality DVB distribution to residential areas, uses TV gateways to convert

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3328-504: The programming at the headend (the individual channels, which are distributed nationally, also have their own nationally oriented commercials). Modern cable systems are large, with a single network and headend often serving an entire metropolitan area . Most systems use hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) distribution; this means the trunklines that carry the signal from the headend to local neighborhoods are optical fiber to provide greater bandwidth and also extra capacity for future expansion. At

3392-454: The programming without cost. Later, the cable operators began to carry FM radio stations, and encouraged subscribers to connect their FM stereo sets to cable. Before stereo and bilingual TV sound became common, Pay-TV channel sound was added to the FM stereo cable line-ups. About this time, operators expanded beyond the 12-channel dial to use the midband and superband VHF channels adjacent to

3456-476: The range of reception for early cable-ready TVs and VCRs. However, once consumer sets had the ability to receive all 181 FCC allocated channels, premium broadcasters were left with no choice but to scramble. The descrambling circuitry was often published in electronics hobby magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Electronics allowing anybody with anything more than a rudimentary knowledge of broadcast electronics to be able to build their own and receive

3520-418: The signals are typically encrypted on modern digital cable systems, and the set-top box must be activated by an activation code sent by the cable company before it will function, which is only sent after the subscriber signs up. If the subscriber fails to pay their bill, the cable company can send a signal to deactivate the subscriber's box, preventing reception. There are also usually upstream channels on

3584-403: The subscriber's residence, the company's service drop cable is connected to cables distributing the signal to different rooms in the building. At each television, the subscriber's television or a set-top box provided by the cable company translates the desired channel back to its original frequency ( baseband ), and it is displayed onscreen. Due to widespread cable theft in earlier analog systems,

3648-532: The upstream speed to 31.2 Kbp/s and prevented the always-on convenience broadband internet typically provides. Many large cable systems have upgraded or are upgrading their equipment to allow for bi-directional signals, thus allowing for greater upload speed and always-on convenience, though these upgrades are expensive. In North America , Australia and Europe , many cable operators have already introduced cable telephone service, which operates just like existing fixed line operators. This service involves installing

3712-460: Was a long struggle for AHN and other cable outlets that launched in this time frame ( Electronic Media , now TV Week magazine, described the environment many cable networks launched in 1996 faced as a "jungle"). Time Warner Cable , the primary cable provider in Orlando, did not carry AHN, and so many people in the channel's own hometown were unable to see its programs. In 1997, Providence Journal

3776-715: Was an American subscription television channel . Launched in July 1998, it was owned by Discovery Communications as a spin-off of Discovery Channel , focusing on health and wellness-oriented programming. In the beginning, DHC's programming consisted of reruns of medical- and health-themed programming from other Discovery networks, particularly TLC . As the network matured, it began producing its own reality series, mostly dealing with babies ( Babies: Special Delivery , Birth Day ), bodies ( Plastic Surgery: Before and After , National Body Challenge ), and medicine ( The Critical Hour , Dr. G: Medical Examiner ). DHC also showed episodes of

3840-456: Was based in Orlando, Florida and had an $ 11 million production center with 16,500-square-foot (1,530 m) soundstage built at Universal Studios in late 1995. The executives at the channel were Joe Maddox (a former Discovery Channel executive) and Webster "Web" Golinkin, who had spent two and a half years planning, raising $ 75 million in capital, and building the channel. The majority owner

3904-400: Was bought by the A.H. Belo Corporation . It was Belo's first venture into cable television; according to Golinkin, Belo did not desire to gain any market share in cable. 161 of the channel's 200 employees were laid off, and they ceased producing live programs. The 39 employees that remained (including the entire management team) were a skeleton crew to keep the channel running. A sale of most of

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3968-427: Was limited, meaning frequencies over 250 MHz were difficult to transmit to distant portions of the coaxial network, and UHF channels could not be used at all. To expand beyond 12 channels, non-standard midband channels had to be used, located between the FM band and Channel 7, or superband beyond Channel 13 up to about 300 MHz; these channels initially were only accessible using separate tuner boxes that sent

4032-559: Was mainly used to relay terrestrial channels in geographical areas poorly served by terrestrial television signals. Cable television began in the United States as a commercial business in 1950s. The early systems simply received weak ( broadcast ) channels, amplified them, and sent them over unshielded wires to the subscribers, limited to a community or to adjacent communities. The receiving antenna would be taller than any individual subscriber could afford, thus bringing in stronger signals; in hilly or mountainous terrain it would be placed at

4096-534: Was the Providence Journal Company. The channel also had a five-year agreement with Mayo Clinic and IVI Publishing, its electronic publisher, to provide medical information and illustrative graphics. Mayo and IVI were also minority owners of the channel, and other investors included venture capital firm Medical Innovation Partners, Inc. 15 minutes an hour on AHN was devoted to shopping. The "Health Mall" carried upscale, harder-to-find items for

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