It’s New Year’s Eve. In a matter of hours, a great realignment takes place as Canadian rights to U.S. specialty TV brands owned by Warner Bros. Discovery change from Bell and Corus to Rogers.

We’ve known about this change for more than six months now, and yet we still have many unanswered questions, including whether you’ll be able to watch HGTV and Food Network content if you’re not a Rogers cable subscriber.

So here’s what we do know:

Rogers has obtained the Canadian rights to the following brands from Warner Bros. Discovery as of Jan. 1:

• Discovery Channel
• ID (Investigation Discovery)
• Discovery Science
• Discovery Velocity (Motor Trend)
• Animal Planet
• HGTV
• Food Network
• Cooking Channel
• OWN
• Magnolia Network

There’s also a separate deal with NBCUniversal for Canadian rights to Bravo, which Bell Media gave up when it rebranded its Bravo channel to CTV Drama in 2019. Rogers rebranded OLN (formerly Outdoor Life Network) as Bravo on Sept. 1.

Though Bell initially tried to fight the agreement, saying WBD was violating a non-compete clause in its contract with Bell, the two eventually settled and Bell is moving on. Corus is fighting on various fronts (including two complaints to the CRTC), but can’t stop the change.

So Bell and Corus have to either rebrand their Canadian versions of those channels or shut them down.

Corus closed OWN on Sept. 1 (its licence has been returned), and is shutting down Cooking Channel and Magnolia Network tonight. HGTV and Food Network were rebranded as Home and Flavour, respectively, on Dec. 30.

Bell is rebranding its channels as follows:

• Discovery becomes USA Network
• Investigation ID becomes Oxygen True Crime
• Discovery Science becomes CTV Nature
• Animal Planet becomes CTV Wild
• Discovery Velocity becomes CTV Speed

Rogers’s plans

It took a while to nail down exactly what Rogers plans to do, but we know it plans to launch five new specialty channels:

• Discovery
• HGTV
• Food Network
• ID
• Magnolia Network

The remaining brands will not have their own linear TV channels, but their programming will be available on Citytv+, which is currently only available on Amazon Prime Video as a paid add-on (why one of Canada’s largest television service distributors needs Amazon to distribute a television streaming service remains beyond my comprehension).

There’s been no published application to the CRTC for licences for these channels, and Rogers used up its only expendable existing licence when it turned OLN into Bravo. So we assume they will launch them as licence-exempt channels and apply for a licence when they inevitably accrue more than 200,000 subscribers (the CRTC limit for exempt services). Going this way means not having to wait months, possibly years for the commission to decide on a new licence before launch. An exempt service can continue operating above 200,000 subscribers while the CRTC deliberates on its application for a licence.

We also haven’t seen any service provider besides Rogers announce they are adding these new channels, even on special pages they set up to announce all the changes (Bell, Videotron, Eastlink, Cogeco, SaskTel, Telus, Access). The only one we could find that made any mention of the new channels is Hay Communications, which says it’s in talks with Rogers and wants to add the channels, but doesn’t look like they can by Jan. 1.

It certainly seems like Rogers is playing hardball with competitors, figuring customers angry with their provider not carrying these new channels might just switch their provider to Rogers. (Rogers has also planned to simply put its new HGTV and Food Network channels in the same channel positions as Corus’s old HGTV and Food Network channels, moving the latter elsewhere, which has drawn a complaint by Corus to the CRTC.)

I’ve asked Rogers to name even a single other provider offering any of these new channels. All I got in response so far was a statement that “We continue to work with all distribution partners to ensure viewers can watch this top-rated content where and when they want.”

So for now, at least, if you’re not a Rogers cable TV subscriber, you won’t be able to watch HGTV, Food Network or Discovery-branded channels as of tomorrow.

While Corus-owned Canadian shows like Rock Solid Builds and Top Chef Canada will stick with Corus on their rebranded channels, U.S.-sourced programming like Home Town, Good Bones, Drivers Dine-ins and Dives, Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay will move to the Rogers channels.

Similarly for Bell Media-owned Discovery shows like Highway Thru Hell, How It’s Made and Mayday sticking with Bell while the rest goes to Rogers.

Sorry about that

In other words, it’s going to be a bit of a mess for the average television subscriber interested in this kind of content. You’ll probably want to change your channel lineup, if you can even subscribe to the channels involved (Telus isn’t keeping the channels Bell is rebranding, and others could choose to drop channels as well). You may need to subscribe to two channels to get content you previously had on one.

The flip side is most of these channels will be on free preview (if your provider is carrying them) until the end of February, giving you some time to check them out before you decide which ones you want to keep and pay for.

(Shout out to WhereCanIWatch.ca, which has also been compiling this info and keeping it updated, and has some details about which programs will go where.)

Other changes

Unrelated to all the stuff above, we’re also losing the following channels:

• BET is no longer being made available in Canada (programming moves to Paramount+) after several major providers dropped the channel
• CBS Sports is no longer being made available in Canada (programming moves to Paramount+)
• MTV Canada (Bell Media) is being shut down, with programming moving to other services
• WWE Network (Rogers) is being shut down after WWE signed a deal with Netflix