Discovery withdraws from Russia: which channels will no longer be available

Discovery joins the giants sanctioning Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

Discovery has announced that it will suspend the broadcasting of its channels and services in Russia, according to Reuters. Fifteen Discovery channels, including HGTV, Animal Planet, TLC and Eurosport, are distributed through the Media Alliance, in association with the Russian National Media Group.

“Discovery has decided to suspend the broadcasting of its channels and services in Russia,” the company said.

The announcement came after CNN, the BBC and other media outlets suspended activity in Russia in response to a new Russian law that threatens jailed journalists for “fake” news coverage of what the Kremlin describes as “Special military operation”.

Discovery closes Russia’s door

As a reference, the National Media Group also partnered with the US streaming platform Netflix, which launched a Russian-language subtitled service in late 2020. Netflix suspended service in Russia on Sunday in protest of Russia’s Russian invasion.

WarnerMedia made a similar decision. In a memorandum to staff on Wednesday, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said that in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the company was “stopping all new business in Russia.” This move includes “stopping the broadcasting of our channels, stopping all new content licenses with Russian entities and interrupting our launches,” according to Kilar’s note.

In other words, WarnerMedia TV channels and its upcoming movies will not be available in Russia in the near future. However, Kilar added that “we are closely following this situation and future business decisions will be made in this context”.

In the meantime, Amazon has also suspended delivery of products to customers in Russia and will not receive new Amazon Web Services customers in the country. “We are also suspending access to Prime Video for Russian customers and will no longer receive orders for New World, which is the only video game we sell directly in Russia,” the company said in a statement.