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.”
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.
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 UKand Crunchyroll.
It has been announced that Cartoon Network in Latin America will begin airing Dragon Ball Daima.
The latest TV anime in the long running franchise will be shown between July 7th and August 1st.
Timeslots will be as follows:
Argentina: 2:30pm with repeats at 9:30pm.
Brazil: 4pm with repeats at 10pm.
Chile: 1:30pm with repeats at 8:30pm.
Colombia: 12:30pm with repeats at 7:30pm.
Mexico: 11am with repeats at 8:30pm.
As of today (July 1st) the Latin American dub of Daima is also available on Max and Crunchyroll as well as the Mexican channel Azteca 7. Netflix and Claro Video are streaming Daima too, but only the original Japanese version.
Like the Cartoon Network airings Dragon Ball Kai is available with five local dubs, but interestingly an English option is also available on Prime Video.
A Discovery subscription is needed, but it will mean the English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada dubs of Dragon Ball Kai will be brought to a wider Indian audience, particularly amongst fans that can now watch these dubs legally at any time.
Cartoon Network Pakistan, which resumed airing Dragon Ball Super after a long delay began broadcasting new episodes at a quicker rate than we previously anticipated.
The most recent run, which began on March 3rd with older episodes, which finally led in to new episodes concluded yesterday (April 3rd) with episode 131.
As such the entire Urdu dub was shown in the space of a month, this included the initial 63 episodes that were rerun and the 68 new episodes.
This dub marks the first time any of the Dragon Ball series has ever been released in the Urdu language.
The show has been airing weekday nights at 7:30pm, but the channel has yet to announce whether it will be airing any more Dragon Ball content in the local languages as Cartoon Network India (also owned by Warner Brothers Discovery Asia-Pacific) has.
A promotional image has leaked recently that may hint at Dragon Ball Daima coming to the channel soon with not only dubs in the aforementioned three languages, but also Malayalam and Kannada.
In a recent social media post Cartoon Network India revealed that from this Sunday (March 23rd) Dragon Ball Kai : The Final Chapters will return to the channel at 1pm, the timeslot that’s been occupied by One Piece for several weeks now.
Of all the releases of Dragon Ball Kai : The Final Chapters internationally the Indian release stands as the release with the most localizations, as the series received 5 dubs in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.
Although the promo recently shared featured footage from the Tournament of Power it appears that Cartoon Network Pakistan wishes to give viewers a chance to catch up if they missed the previous broadcast of Dragon Ball Super.
Today (March 3rd) at 7:30pm Pakistani time the channel aired 5 episodes of Dragon Ball Super, but rather than continue from where they left off they started airing the series from the beginning.
As clips were shown it is possible that once Cartoon Network reaches the point they stopped airing new episodes of Dragon Ball Super they will continue the series, but only time will tell.
From tomorrow (March 3, 2025) the Urdu dub is set to continue on the channel from a new timeslot of 7:30pm (a slight change from the previous 7pm slot).
The last episode shown was episode 63 and if the promo is anything to go by Cartoon Network Pakistan will be bringing not only the conclusion of the Future Trunks arc but also the Tournament of Power to fans.
For further updates on Dragon Ball in Pakistan and elsewhere watch this space.
Bandbudh Aur Budbak previously took the aforementioned 12:15pm Sunday timeslot prior to original Dragon Ball, which was to air after Battle of Gods from 2pm-4pm, but it moved to a 1:30pm timeslot.
As such, given the runtime of Battle of Gods it is likely original Dragon Ball will return to its former 2pm timeslot.
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