• by Wayne Friedman , September 25, 2014

Looking to expand beyond its narrow kids TV base, Discovery Communications’ Hub Network will now become Discovery Family Channel. The 5-year-old Hub -- a 50-50 co-venture between Discovery and toymaker Hasbro -- will take on its new moniker on Oct. 13.

Discovery will now have 60% ownership in the new channel; Hasbro has 40%.  

Discovery says the network will broaden its programming for families in prime time and continue to run Hasbro Studios children’s content in daytime. Discovery Family will reach 70 million TV homes.

For the second quarter of 2014, Hub averaged 56,000 total day viewers ages 2-11 (in 13th place among all cable networks) and 29,000 among 6-11 viewers (12th place).

New series for the network will include non-fiction family series: “Superhuman,” “Time Warp”, “Flying Wild Alaska”, “Africa” and “Extreme Engineering: Biggest Reveals.” Existing TV series for kids will continue such as “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic”, “Littlest Pet Shop” and “Transformers Rescue Bots.”

Tom Cosgrove will become general manager of Discovery Family Channel. Most recently, he had run Discovery’s 3net and 3net Studios; 3net, which started up in February 2011 ceased operations on August 2014.

Cosgrove had also been executive vice president/COO of Discovery Channel and Science Channel. Previously, he had senior executive posts at ABC Family, Fox Family, Fox Kids and TV Guide Channel.

It was announced in June that Margaret Loesch would step down as president/chief executive officer of Hub Network by the end of 2014.