American Heroes Channel

American Heroes Channel
	Warner Bros. Discovery Networks
Sister channels	List Adult Swim; Animal Planet; AT&T SportsNet; Boomerang; Cartoon Network; Cartoonito; Cinemax; CNN; Cooking Channel; The CW; Destination America; Discovery Channel; Discovery en Español; Discovery Family; Discovery Familia; Discovery Life; Food Network; HBO; HGTV; HLN; Investigation Discovery; Magnolia Network; Motor Trend; Oprah Winfrey Network; Science Channel; TBS; TLC; TNT; Travel Channel; TruTV; Turner Classic Movies; ;
History
Launched	July 15, 1998; 25 years ago
Former names	Discovery Wings Channel (1998–2005); Military Channel (2005–14);
Links
Website	www.ahctv.com

American Heroes Channel (formerly Military Channel and originally Discovery Wings Channel) is an American multinational

programs

related to the military, warfare, and military history and science.

As of February 2015^[update], the channel is available to approximately 59,917,000 pay television households (51.5% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.^[1]

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 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.

Logo as Military Channel, used from January 10, 2005 to March 2, 2014

On January 10, 2005, the network was rebranded as the Military Channel.^[2] 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."^[3] 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

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

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.