Discovery
 |  |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
|
|
History
When Discovery Communications, Inc. (DCI) founder, chairman, and CEO John Hendricks began, his aim was to create a network that provided the highest-quality documentary programming. Hendricks’ mission was to create a channel that “was just all documentaries — [one that] had everything from science and history to nature, human adventure.” Incorporated as the Cable Educational Network, the company began to take shape as the global leader in nonfiction entertainment with the launch of the Discovery Channel on June 17, 1985.
Originally based in Landover, Maryland, Discovery began with 19 employees and 156,000 subscribers. They were the first viewers to have the chance to experience a media outlet designed to provide enlightening programming that allowed them to explore and satisfy their curiosity about the world.
Just two years after its launch, the Discovery Channel made television history by offering American viewers their first glimpse of domestic television in the Soviet Union. Russia: Live from the Inside was an unprecedented 66-hour live telecast that became the stepping stone for Discovery’s growth into an international programming partner and documentary producer.
Today, Discovery is the world’s largest originator of documentary programming. Its original productions Shark Week, Submarines: Sharks of Steel, In the Company of Whales, People of the Forest: The Chimps of Gombe, Carrier: Fortress at Sea, Titanic Live, Raising the Mammoth, Walking with Dinosaurs, Nefertiti Resurrected, Monster Garage, American Chopper, and countless others draw millions of viewers. Along the way, the network has garnered every major industry award, from Primetime Emmy Awards to the Peabody and DuPont Gold Baton, among many others.
As the network entered 2004, the Discovery Channel was reaching 90 million people in the United States. It is the flagship network for a company that encompasses 14 domestic cable networks and ten more around the world, one of the television industry’s most visited Web sites, a chain of more than 100 retail outlets, and a vibrant consumer product and licensing business that help introduce Discovery to a growing global audience.
|
||