Dragon Ball Super’s 6-year run on UK TV should be coming to an end soon, as it has been announced Narrative Entertainment will be shutting down their linear channels and app next month.
Narrative Entertainment MD Paul Dunthorne commented:
“With commercial value across the UK kids’ TV market now just 4% of what it was 10 years ago, we’ve taken the decision to close our linear Pop channel at the end of the year. We understand the importance of offering high-quality kids’ TV, and we’ve done everything that we can to maintain Pop. But free-to-air channels for this audience are simply not commercially viable without public service broadcaster-style funding.
“We will retain our Pop presence on FAST channels in the UK on Freeview, Samsung, LG and other platforms, and internationally, as these continue to offer commercial opportunities.”
Pop was previously owned by Sony Pictures Television before they sold their UK TV portfolio to Narrative Entertainment in 2021.
Dragon Ball Super’s premier on Pop in 2019 marked the series debut on free TV, which became the only such free-to-air (FTA) commercial kids’ broadcaster after the closure of ITV’s CITV in 2023.
Sister channel Pop Max (which also aired Dragon Ball Super) left Freeview and Sky in December of last year, and January this year respectively. Their content was moved to Pop and Pop Player.
As it stands Dragon Ball Super remains on Pop from 7pm-8pm and 1:50am-2:38am every night. Whether it will be run until Pop’s last day broadcasting remains to be seen.
As Dragon Ball Super has lasted 6 years on Pop (although the channel removed it from their schedule at times) it is the instalment of the franchise which has been on UK TV for the longest.
Dragon Ball Z aired between 2000 and 2002 on Cartoon Network, 2002-2003 on CNX and 2003-2005 on Toonami, Dragon Ball GT ran on CNX and Toonami for the same years while original Dragon Ball only aired on Toonami and Dragon Ball Kai was shown on Kix between 2012 and 2015.
It is likely Dragon Ball Super lasted as long as it has on Pop because of sponsorship deals with Bandai Namco and toy retailer chain Smyths.
While the future of Dragon Ball on linear TV remains uncertain, although the series is still available on Crunchyroll, BBC iPlayer and home video releases from Manga UK and Crunchyroll.