Discovery Life marks latest cable rebrand

Gary Levin

USA TODAY

Updated Dec. 15, 2014, 1:13 p.m. ET

Lenore Skenazy helps moms avoid smothering their kids in a new Discovery Life series

Discovery Life will join the cable lineup Jan. 15, rising from the ashes of Discovery Fit & Health, which it's replacing on cable and satellite systems reaching 47 million homes.

Life marks Discovery Networks' latest effort in recent years to retool a smaller, sometimes struggling cable network: Environmentally themed Planet Green became Destination America, Military Channel was renamed American Heroes Channel, and this fall Hub became Discovery Family Channel.

The Fit & Health label "is a bit of a barrier to entry" for viewers, says general manager Jane Latman. "It sounds like 'eat your broccoli,' not a place to go for entertainment." (Still, ratings are up 7%, to 102,000 viewers in prime time this year, according to Nielsen.)

The channel will preserve some of its current lineup, mostly docudramas about emergency-room medicine. "We're not going to abandon what's been working," Latman says, "but we have an opportunity to broaden (our audience) a bit," with shows about "real emotion, real stories and unvarnished documentary storytelling."

Programs, some already aired overseas on sibling Discovery networks, include:

• Outrageous Births: Tales from the Crib (premieres Jan. 15 at 9 ET/PT, then Fridays at 9) features "unbelievable, unexpected birth stories."

• 50 Ways to Kill Your Mother (Jan. 15, Thursdays at 10 ET/PT), an adventure series teaming a 70-year-old Irish mom and her "daredevil son" as they go skydiving and wrestle alligators.

• NY ER (Jan. 16, Fridays at 10 ET/PT) chronicles life inside three New York hospital emergency rooms.

• Body Bizarre (Jan. 17, Saturdays at 9 ET/PT) covers rare medical anomalies including a Nepalese man born with three legs and a Brazilian man whose spinal defect made his head face upside down.

• Hoarding: Behind Closed Doors (Jan. 18, Sundays at 10 ET/PT) focuses on British extreme hoarders.

• The Mistress (Jan. 21, Wednesdays at 10 ET/PT) portrays "the hidden life of the often-vilified" other woman.

• World's Worst Mom (Jan. 22, Thursdays at 9 ET/PT) employs Lenore Skenazy to help "high-strung fearful moms let go of their tightly held reins so their kids can thrive."

Here's a promo, to begin airing Thursday, for the newly rebranded network:

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