Launched on October 7, 1996, Discovery Kids was an offshoot of the Discovery Channel, only this time aimed at a younger audience. The channel's content consisted of science, nature, and adventure-themed programs, similar to how the regular channel and its offshoots operated, but watered-down to be more kid-friendly, hence its name. During its early years, they mostly acquired other programming from other channels, namely Canadian programming like Popular Mechanics for Kids, The Saddle Club, Incredible Story Studios, and Mystery Hunters.

By the early 2000s, they started to produce their own shows alongside the acquired ones, which also included animated programming. These programs ranged from Edutainment Shows targeted at children to pre-teen or teen-oriented programming that still taught life-lessons. Both of these programs were split into two Kids Blocks, both launched in 2003: The first one, Ready Set Learn (a reboot of the TLC block of the same name), hosted by Paz the Penguin, aimed to teach kids valuable life-lessons; the second one, Real Toons, was more action-oriented, but still gave lessons to its audience. The preschool shows were aired on the former block, while the tween/teen-centric shows aired on the latter.

In 2002, NBC partnered with Discovery Communications to launch the Discovery Kids on NBC programming block, running from October 5 of that year to September 2, 2006. It mostly aired the same programs from the main channel.

By that point, Discovery Kids was running on auto-pilot; running Edutainment Shows from the early 2000s that hadn't been refreshed for years, with a mixture of acquired programming and other kid-friendly content from sister channels such as Animal Planet that could fit the network's mission.

On April 30, 2009, it was announced that Hasbro had acquired a 50% stake in Discovery Kids from Discovery Communications, which was in the middle of overhauling its various spin-off channels.

The resulting joint venture changed the channel's name to The Hub on October 10, 2010 (following a marathon of Kenny the Shark, which was carried over upon the revamp). Discovery oversaw ad sales and distribution, while Hasbro was responsible for programming. The network continued to use the Discovery Kids strategy of branding its educational programming as meeting FCC educational and informational programming guidelines. An on-screen logo lists it as E/I on electronic program guide listings despite the E/I policy being targeted fully to broadcast stations, with cable networks completely excluded from E/I regulations.

As to be expected with a network partially owned by a toy company, Merchandise-Driven programming was a significant part of the channel's schedule. In company with Hasbro product (including franchises with significant storytelling histories), American Greetings was also a presence on the channel. In addition, they aired reruns of kids/family shows from the '80s and '90s and shows that the big three children's networks had no room for anymore, family-friendly movies, original game shows based on Hasbro's several board game properties (including Family Game Night, Scrabble Showdown and The Game of Life), and even older classic sitcoms during the evenings such as Happy Days and The Wonder Years. Their first Reality Show, Majors & Minors, premiered on September 23, 2011. For a while, they even had a sort of SportsCenter meets Entertainment Tonight series called HubWorld, which mainly focused on Hub-related news (such as recaps of what happened on shows the previous week) as well as celebrity interviews and such - fairly unique for a cable network.

During this era, the channel essentially served as a Spiritual Successor to what's currently Freeform, specifically the early '90s Family Channel days (game shows, older family-friendly sitcoms and other programming) and to the "Twister" era of Fox Family (off-the-wall cartoons, often imported from Canada, and reruns of older, well-remembered cartoons). Due to the prevalence of Hasbro's '80s franchises on the channel, like Transformers, it had a substantial Periphery Demographic of 20-35 year olds. The surprise favorite of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (carrying its own wide demographic spread) also helped to support the rebooted channel's newfound success. Likewise, the channel promoted one of the most well-received incarnations of Transformers to date: Transformers: Prime.

On a darker note, The Hub was infamous for making the videos hosted on its website an ugly case of No Export for You. They have pinned the blame on Hasbro Studios' international licensing and distribution deals with other networks including: Turner Broadcasting (of Cartoon Network and Boomerang) in some countries, Lagardère Active (of Canal J, Tiji and Guili) in France, Tiny Pop in the UK, Nelonen (and Fox for Transformers: Prime) in Finland, Hasbro's licensing partners in Japan (Takara Tomy for Transformers Prime and Bushiroad for MLP, both through TV Tokyo and its affiliates), Disney Channel in Spain, and Corus Entertainment (YTV, Treehouse, and Teletoon) in Canada.

In September 2014, it was announced that Discovery Communications would acquire 10% of Hasbro's stake on the network, which means they would take majority control of the network back. Thus, the Hub Network would become Discovery Family, aimed at both kids and their parents. Hasbro still has some influence on the network; while the initial press release stated they would control six hours of daytime programming, this appears to have been expanded to 12 hours. Shows acquired and programmed by Hasbro air from 5am to 5pm Eastern Time (Which means if you live on the East Coast and have any issues with recording TV programs, you're screwed).

The rest of the day of 2014, the classic comedy lineup being removed for repeats of Discovery library content, with family-friendly movies in primetime added with later on. While ongoing Hasbro-produced cartoons from The Hub are able to continue airing new episodes on Discovery Family, Hasbro decided that Transformers Robots in Disguise, a sequel to Transformers Prime, would air instead on Cartoon Network (ironically now its sister channel), as the new channel's demographics were seen as less favorable compared to Cartoon Network's male-oriented boy audiences.^note Robots in Disguise would end up being yet another installment of the franchise to be screwed over by Cartoon Network; the show was only seen on early Saturday mornings directly after signing off with [adult swim] with non-existent promotion; despite this, Hasbro stayed at CN for the next mainline Transformers production, Cyberverse, before moving over to Nickelodeon and Paramount+ for EarthSpark.

After Discovery Family's launch on October 13, 2014, Discovery fired The Hub's promotional staff and discarded the HubWorld website in favor of a new website that currently just has a schedule and channel finder. HubWorld's older practice of fully streaming episodes in the United States was discarded altogether and later replaced with the Discovery Family GO Android/iOS app, which streams network programming to people who subscribe to the channel with certain cable/satellite or OTT providers (with Chromecast support).

The channel has also branched out into overseas markets, such as in Latin America, Canada, India and Britain; some of which air programming from the original branch, but also shows that never aired on the American channel. As of 2025, the Latin American and Indian branches are the only channels to continue operating with the original Discovery Kids name, due to both channels branching out into their own identities, with the former altering their logo into DK around 2005, and even producing original shows (both live-action and animated) for the channel. The Latin American branch also has shows (original and acquired) that are currently available to watch on HBO Max, though some are limited to specific regions.

In addition, the American channel also has a Spanish-language version called Discovery Familia (previously Discovery Kids en Español and Discovery Viajar y Vivir, which airs programming from the original branch as well as the Latin American branch. There's also a now-discontinued French version of the same name, but unlike the original channel, it doesn't air any animated or kid-oriented programs.

By 2022, the channel was moved to the same oversight as the CN channels shortly after the formation of Warner Bros. Discovery. This led to a number of Warner Bros. Animation/Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network Studios programs joining the schedule.

In the summer of 2024, it was announced via Facebook that Discovery Family would be rebranded again to Discovery Family Channel (or DFC for short), which will air programs from Cartoon Network as well. The new logo first appeared in Labor Day 2024 with the network premiere of Steven Universe reruns.

The Hub is not to be confused with a Hub Level, a certain infamous website, or the city of Boston.

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American Branch

Note: Programs that currently air on or formerly aired on Discovery Kids' International branches (Latin America, India, Australia, etc.) will be marked with an asterisk.

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Active International Branches

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Discontinued International Branches

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Tropes applying to the channel:

• April Fools' Day: For 2025, a marathon of The Smurfs played throughout the morning and afternoon slots instead of the usual programming (which would air shows produced by Hasbro as well as Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network).
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • All three iterations of the American branch were launched at different points in October. Discovery Kids launched on October 22, 1996, followed by The Hub on October 10, 2010, and finally by Discovery Family on October 13, 2014.
  • For the Hub Network specifically, the channel initially launched on October 10, 2010 at 10:00 am^note In Eastern time; it premiered an hour earlier in central time. In other words, the Hub premiered on the tenth hour of the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year of the new millennium.
• Network Decay: Absolutely no new programs on Discovery Family premiered in any month of 2021. The last new program on the channel was My Little Pony: Pony Life, which premiered in November 2020. Discovery's combination with WarnerMedia to create Warner Bros. Discovery the following year made the channel truly superfluous as Hasbro moved their new series to Netflix; it continues operation as a repeat farm which reports to the Cartoon Network group.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Haim Saban, upon creating Saban Brands, bluffed Disney giving him back Power Rangers by saying they were going to bring it to The Hub. In the end, Nickelodeon was left in charge of the Rangers. The fact that Takara Tomy (the owners of the Hasbro's Transformers franchise in Japan) is Bandai's rival in and outside the country likely contributed to this. Hasbro wouldn't acquire the Power Rangers IP until 2019, long after The Hub was rebranded.
  • Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid!, and The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin were slated to join the Hub's lineup but were dropped when it became Discovery Family.

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Let's Go!

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