Wikipedia / American Heroes Channel
Wikipedia / American Heroes Channel
American Heroes Channel (formerly Military Channel and originally Discovery Wings Channel) is an American multinational pay television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. The network carries programs related to the military, warfare, and military history and science.
, AHC is available to approximately 28,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2014 peak of 62,000,000 households. Along with Boomerang, Cooking Channel, Destination America, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, and Science Channel, American Heroes Channel is among the less prevalent networks of Warner Bros. Discovery.
In recent years, AHC has lost carriage with the growth of streaming alternatives including its parent company's HBO Max, and has generally been depreciated by Warner Bros. Discovery in current retransmission consent negotiations with cable and streaming providers.
Background
The channel launched in July 1998, as Discovery Wings Channel; it originally focused on programs relating to aircraft and aerospace. During its early years, the network also aired a weather segment near the top of each hour featuring aviation forecast data from the National Weather Service. Discovery Wings Channel became available to television providers in Canada starting on September 7, 2001.
Discovery Communications filed a trademark application with the United States Copyright Office for the use of the name "Military Channel" in 2002, after the trademark was abandoned by an unrelated start-up cable network based in Louisville, Kentucky, also named The Military Channel, which went dark in 1999 and later went bankrupt. That network – which focused on the heroes, history and hardware of the international military scene – experienced difficulty raising capital, despite early success.
On January 10, 2005, the network was rebranded as the Military Channel. Carrying over from its original format, many of the network's programs as the Military Channel were dedicated to aerial warfare and related technologies and issues. In 2005, the channel aired its first live program from Philadelphia at the site of the Army–Navy college football game, two hours before that game's kickoff, in which Fox Sports commentator Chris Myers hosted from a set outside of Lincoln Financial Field.
On March 3, 2014, the channel was rebranded as American Heroes Channel, with the intent to "provide more history based, narrative-style documentary programming." The network is a sponsor of the United Service Organizations (USO) and frequently runs commercials for that organization.
Programming
Many of the programs featured on American Heroes Channel are war documentaries, the contents of which deal in large part with modern warfare, and in particular the U.S. military from World War II onward. While the A+E Networks-owned History, Military History and H2 air similar programming, those networks tend to show more programs about other time periods and cultures (ancient, Roman, Medieval, Eastern, and other forms of warfare). AHC has a more contemporary subject matter than those competitors, but it occasionally presents historical programming as well. Actor Dennis Haysbert serves as the network's continuity announcer for its on-air promotions.
In addition, the channel also presents feature films with a military theme (usually within the hosted movie series An Officer and a Movie, which is hosted by Lou Diamond Phillips), as well as individual episodes of other shows (such as Belly of the Beast, Build It Bigger, Extreme Machines, Timewatch and Unsolved History), which incorporate military-related content. These are often shows that were produced for other Discovery Communications-owned channels.
List of programs
Current programs
Against the Odds
America: Facts vs. Fiction
American Lawmen
American Titans
Ancient Assassins
Blood and Fury: America's Civil War
Blood Feuds
Chasing Conspiracies
Codes and Conspiracies
Cold War Armageddon
Egypt's Greatest Mysteries
Forbidden History
Gunslingers
Hitler
How the World Ends
Inside Secret Societies
Mafia's Greatest Hits
Mafia's Most Wanted
Manhunt: Kill or Capture
Nazi Death Squad
Nazi Fugitives
Nazi Secret Files
Origins
UFO's The Lost Evidence
War Stories
What History Forgot
WWII Confidential
WWII: Witness to War
Former programming
9/11 As We Watched
Age of Aerospace
America's Most Badass
Anatomy Of ...
Apocalypse: Hitler
Apocalypse: Stalin
Apocalypse: WWI
At Sea
Auschwitz: Hitler's Final Solution
Battle of the Atlantic
Battleplan
Black Ops
The Color of War
Combat Countdown
Combat Tech
Combat Zone
Edge of War
Escape to the Legion
Evolution of Evil
Firepower
First Command
The First World War
G.I. Factory
Great Planes
The Greatest Ever
Heroes of World War II
Hitler's Bodyguard
How We Got Here
Mission Demolition
Missions that Changed the War
Modern Sniper
Narrow Escapes of World War II
Natural Born Outlaws
Navy SEALs: Untold Stories
Nazi Collaborators
Normandy: The Great Crusade
Officer and a Movie
Project Nazi: The Blueprints of Evil
Quest for Sunken Warships
Secrets of World War II
Showdown: Air Combat
Special Forces: Untold Stories
Stealth Secrets
Top Sniper
Top Ten
Toughest Military Jobs
Ultimate Weapons
War Stories
Warrior POV
Weaponizers
Weapons of World War II
Wings of the Luftwaffe
Wings Over Vietnam
World's Deadliest Aircraft
World War I in Colour
World War II Confidential
Some programs are available to stream on Max.
References
External links