National Geographic is a Dutch free-to-cable television channel that features documentaries produced by the National Geographic Society. It features some programming similar to that on the Discovery such as nature, science, culture, and history documentaries. The channel launched in the Netherlands in 1998 and initially time shared with CNBC Europe. It was later launched worldwide including in Asia and the United States. Today, the channel is available in over 145 countries, seen in more than 160 million homes and in 25 languages.