NatGeo India Shuts Music, People Channels To Focus On Regions

National Geographic Music HD and National Geographic People HD will be taken off air from 24 May, following approval by India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the change in channel names.

The standard definition feeds for National Geographic People and National Geographic Music were taken off air in 2015.

The new channels, National Geographic Tamil and National Geographic Telugu, will join rival Discovery Tamil in India’s regional language infotainment space. Discovery Tamil launched in 2011.

The move to increase National Geographic’s Tamil and Telugu content marks an increasing trend for broadcasters to regionalise their offerings in India, which is home to 122 major languages. Of these 30 are spoken by more than a million native speakers, according to the Census of India 2001.

Last year, National Geographic celebrated 20 years of operating in India. As well as its own branded infotainment content, it operates Animal Planet and the lifestyle channel Fox Life.―Rapid TV News