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| Broadcast area | United Kingdom Iceland Malta Ireland |
|---|---|
| Programming | |
| Picture format | 2160p UHDTV (downscaled to 1080i and 16:9 576i for the HDTV and SDTV feeds, respectively) |
| Timeshift service | National Geographic +1 |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | National Geographic Society National Geographic Europe Ltd |
| Sister channels | |
| History | |
| Launched | 1 September 1997 |
| Replaced | Sky 2 |
| Links | |
| Website | nationalgeographic.co.uk nationalgeographic.ie |
| Availability | |
| Streaming media | |
| Sky Go | Watch live (UK and Ireland only) |
| Virgin TV | Watch live (UK only) |
| TalkTalk TV | Watch live (UK only) |
| BT TV | Watch live (UK only) |
National Geographic is a British pay television channel that features documentaries It is a localized version of the original namesake American channel It features some programming similar to that on the Discovery Channel such as nature and science documentaries. The channel was launched in Europe in September 1997 and time shared initially with the failing NBC Europe until NBC Europe's demise in 1998, at which point it began timesharing with Fox Kids (in the UK, replacing the failed first iteration of Sky 2); with analogue transmission of the channel ending, and the sale of Fox Kids to Disney, timesharing was eventually superseded by 24-hour broadcasting. It was later launched worldwide including in Asia and the United States. Today, the channel is available in over 143 countries, seen in more than 160 million homes and in 25 languages.
It is owned by a company called the "NGC-UK Partnership", which initially was jointly owned by the National Geographic Society and British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), but in 2006, Sky's parent company News Corporation (now The Walt Disney Company) purchased 25 percent of the stake in the partnership, followed by the acquisition of BSkyB's remaining 50 percent stake by its sister company, the Fox Entertainment Group.
This includes an English-language version for the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta and Iceland. It also includes Dutch, Italian, Norwegian and Turkish speaking channels among others. The channel's musical signature is the Elmer Bernstein composed theme that has also appeared on the National Geographic broadcast-TV specials.