AUSTIN, Texas - The cable and satellite channel associated with director Robert Rodriquez’s El Rey Network ceased operations on New Year’s Day as its partnership with Univision ended.

Started by Rodriquez in 2013 and based in Austin, Texas, the channel aired genre films and other programming aimed at Hispanic audiences and eventually provided a platform for original content such as From Dusk till Dawn: The Series and The Director’s Chair, in which Rodriquez interviewed fellow directors such as John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino.

In March of 2015, the El Rey Network was in about 40 million households. By December 2020, however, that dwindled to about 13 million households.

Dish Network removed the channel from its lineup in 2018, followed by DirecTV and AT&T U-verse in 2020. Cox and Charter followed suit later in 2020.

On November 6, 2020, Univision announced it had sold its stake in El Rey. On December 8, Rodriquez announced the network would cease operations but stated it could be resurrected as a digital-only brand.