In November 2000, CTV Inc. was granted approval by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch Animal Planet, a service described as being "broadly based on family entertainment that will combine high-quality Canadian programming and attractive series and documentaries from the
U.S. counterpart, in the United States. The channel was launched under its current ownership structure (with the exception of Bell Media, wherein
Bell Globemedia, later renamed CTVglobemedia, owned its shares at the time) on September 7, 2001. On June 30, 2008, Animal Planet unveiled a new on-air appearance, including a new logo and graphics, to align itself with the American service which had updated its appearance earlier that year. Ownership changed once again when
BCE (a minority shareholder in CTVglobemedia) acquired 100% interest in CTVglobemedia and was renamed to Bell Media on April 1, 2011. On June 10, 2024,
Rogers Sports & Media announced it had reached an agreement with
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) for Canadian rights to its lifestyle brands beginning in January 2025, which were subsequently confirmed to include Animal Planet. This led to a lawsuit by Bell, which claimed the move would violate previous
non-compete clauses with WBD; the matter was settled out of court in October. Rogers announced that Animal Planet content would move to its on-demand and streaming platforms including
Citytv+, rather than a new linear channel. On October 17, 2024, Bell Media announced the channel would rebrand as CTV Wild Channel on January 1, 2025. The channel will carry over certain Canadian series previously commissioned by Bell for Animal Planet Canada, as well as other animal-related content from third-party distributors. At some point after the rebranding, WBD and BBC divested its stakes in the channel, making a sole owner. ==Animal Planet HD==