Enigmatic Malaysia

An ad promoting the network's Enigmatic Malaysia, a special series meant to highlight the cultural heritages of Malaysia, mistakenly featured Balinese Pendet dancers. This prompted outrage from Balinese dancers, who posted messages demanding that Malaysia apologize over the misinformation, which then sparked a series of street protests.^[18] Further demands were made from the local governments, cultural historians as well as the tourism ministry in Indonesia for Malaysia to clarify the situation.^[19] The Malaysian government reportedly offered their apologies, which was rejected by the Indonesian tourism minister, since the apology was given informally by phone, the Indonesian tourism minister demanded a written apology to make it more accountable.

Controversy

In August 2008 it was reported by The Consumerist that Discovery Channel had stopped their popularMythBusters program from airing an episode examining RFID security in regard to its implementation in credit cards because the episode would upset credit card companies, who are major advertisers on Discovery Channel.^[16] It was later determined that the decision not to investigate the issue was made by Beyond Productions, the MythBusters production company, and was not made by Discovery Channel or their advertising department

South-East Asia

In India, China, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the rest of South East Asia, the S.E. Asian version of the Discovery Channel is available on digital subscription television. Discovery Channel Asia still shows crime programs e.g. Most Evil, The FBI Files, etc.. There also is a large number of programming featuring development and society in Asian countries, especially in India and China. For example, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore has a number of other channels branched from the main Discovery Channel: Discovery Turbo, Discovery Science, Discovery Home & Health and Discovery Travel & Living.

The Philippines on the other hand, has its own version of the said channel. The Philippine feed shares the program schedule as the SE Asian feed, except for the inclusion of the Philippine advertisements during commercial breaks.

Germany

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland Discovery Channel is part of the Premiere-digital-network and supplies specific programs to other networks like ZDF and kabel eins. Discovery Communications is also owner of the documentary-channel XXP. The channel was bought in spring 2006 from its former shareholders Spiegel TV and "dctp". All programs are dubbed into German. The channel is now known as "DMAX", presumably to associate the channel with Discovery.

In the Netherlands, the Discovery Channel is included in most cable subscriptions, as well as in the IPTV and DVB-T subscribtions. Nearly all of the programs are broadcast in their original language, but they are subtitled in Dutch as is the policy of all Dutch television stations. Some programs as well as most promos and program announcements have a Dutch voice-over. In Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, a Flemish Discovery Channel launched (previously the Dutch version was available for IPTV, DVB-C and DVB-S) on Cable (and digital) Television on October 1, 2009.

Europe

In the United Kingdom, Discovery Channel UK has some programs in common with the US version, including MythBusters, American Chopper, How It's Made and Deadliest Catch. The channel is carried as a basic subscription channel on digital satellite (SKY) and digital cable (Virgin Media. Discovery UK also operates many additional channels: Discovery HD, Discovery Knowledge, Discovery Turbo, Discovery Science, Animal Planet, DMAX, Discovery Real Time, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Travel & Leisure and Discovery Shed. Many of these channels also have timeshifted versions.

In the Republic of Ireland the UK edition is available on most cable/digital operators but with local advertisements on Discovery Channel.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland Discovery Channel is part of the Premiere-digital-network and supplies specific programs to other networks like ZDF and kabel eins. Discovery Communications is also owner of the documentary-channel XXP. The channel was bought in spring 2006 from its former shareholders Spiegel TV and "dctp". All programs are dubbed into German. The channel is now known as "DMAX", presumably to associate the channel with Discovery.

Canada

Discovery Channel Canada has an ownership structure different from Discovery Channel. Canadian viewers receive almost identical English-language programming to the channel that American viewers watch, but with some added Canadian content to suit the audience. Most notably, the Canadian channel carries the daily science news show Daily Planet, originally @discovery.ca, the first of its kind. Occasionally, several segments on similar topics are taken from various episodes and put together into one-hour specials that are broadcast on the original Discovery Channel. Canadian channels Discovery World HD, Discovery Health, Discovery Science, Investigation Discovery andAnimal Planet are also seen.

International

Discovery Channel reaches 431 million homes in 170 countries. Currently, Discovery Communications offers 29 network brands in 33 languages. In a number of countries, Discovery's channels are available on digital satellite platforms with multiple language soundtracks or subtitles including Spanish, German, Russian, Czech, Hindi, Tamil, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Turkish, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Arabic, Slovene, Indian, Japanese, Korean andSerbian. In Bulgaria, Discovery has since 2000–2001 been displayed with Bulgarian subtitles by all cable providers and since 2010 - with Bulgarian doubling for some of the shows.