El Rey network, which brought Lucha Underground among wrestling fans, will be discontinued at the end of the year. CableFax reports that Robert Rodriguez’s network will shut down on December 31.
El Rey has aired a series of new content presented during its seven years on the air, such as From dusk to dawn: the series, Matador, Texas Justice, El Rey Nation, and more, but for wrestling fans, it was best known as the home of Lucha Underground who worked for three seasons. Since the promotion folded, the network has been dealing with wrestling content in a lesser capacity through the chat program Vampiro: Released.
The writing was on the wall for El Rey after Univision announced in November that it would reduce its stake in the network as it explored sales opportunities. El Rey has seen its network traffic decline as it was dropped by AT&T in January and Charter in September. It is currently about 13 million homes.
Rodriguez told Univision last month that he was “confident that we will continue with this strong foundation to serve one of the most important and influential audiences.” It is speculated that the network may move its operations to a streaming capacity, where Rodriguez has found success with content directed by episodes of The Mandalorian for the release of Disney + and Netflix Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl prosecute We can be heroes on Christmas Day.
El Rey was originally launched as a condition for Comcast’s merger with NBCUniversal as a channel that supports minority audiences.