Discovery Communications (the parent company of the Discovery Channel) has purchased the environmentally-focused blog TreeHugger. There's no official word on how much the deal was worth, but the New York Post reported that Discovery paid about $10 million in green for the green web site.

Why buy a blog focused on green lifestyles? Discovery plans to launch the first 24 hour channel devoted to sustainable living. The company is essentially replacing its Discovery Home Channel with Planet Green. The channel will be available in 50 million households at launch.

TreeHugger will continue to publish its regular blog, but will also produce content for the Planet Green website. TreeHugger founder Graham Hill says he's recently been approached by more than 15 large companies interested in buying the 4 year old blog. But he says Discovery is the company that most closely understands TreeHugger's environmental mission and has the ability to bring its message to a wide audience.

In 2007, Robert Redford's Sundance Channel will launch a three-hour primetime block of shows called Sundance Channel Green. Original series and documentaries will focus on environmental issues, and the channel also plans to take the new initiative to other platforms as well, including an online portal called ECOMMUNITY and downloads for wireless devices. Redford has been an environmental activist for some time now, and it seems he's taking advantage of renewed public interest in this topic spurred by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. I think there's an audience for this kind of programming, but I have doubts as to whether or not it will do much to persuade anyone who doesn't already have strong opinions one way or the other about these issues.