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00:00discovery has become one of the biggest names associated with educational media possibly the
00:12biggest i would imagine that most of the followers of this channel have also found value in the
00:17discovery channel over the years because when it comes to making educational topics entertaining
00:21they were like one of the originals to do it in a big way the company was started by john hendrix
00:27who was able to raise five million dollars from various investors to launch a modest cable channel
00:32that was only available in 156 000 homes when it officially launched on june 17th 1985 none of it
00:40was original content john hendrix had become a big fan of documentaries going back to his days at the
00:45university of alabama a decade earlier so the channel would mainly show existing documentaries
00:50that he had licensed at the time john hendrix said our programming is for what we call lifetime
00:56learners people who maintain a curiosity about the world and who want to come away from a program
01:02enriched as well as amused the idea there was that it probably would not attract a wide audience but
01:08the people it did attract would likely be higher educated and wealthier which would be attractive
01:13to potential sponsors well over the past 40 years almost exactly that small cable channel has become
01:20larger than anybody could have predicted and i'm guessing larger than most people realize it is
01:26currently one of the largest media companies in the world that is worth billions of dollars so in
01:31this video i want to try to convey the size of discovery while highlighting some of the more
01:35significant or more interesting steps that helped it grow so large starting off where else but with
01:41the discovery channel itself which you might expect would be the majority of this video but it is only
01:47going to be a small part of it within a few months of that launch date most of the discovery channel
01:52was sold to three different cable companies who helped make it available to more households though
01:57i do want to point out that founder john hendrix continued leading the company as ceo until stepping
02:02down in 2004 and even then stayed on as chairman of the board until 2014. back in the 1980s educational
02:10content like this was way less common so even though everything they showed was already existing 75% of it
02:17never aired on american television before so i think it was that uniqueness that helped attract its
02:22initial wave of viewers over the next few years they started making original shows and they started
02:27airing shark week they noticed that shows about sharks always seem to do really well in the ratings
02:32so to try to raise those numbers in the summer of 1988 they aired a 10-part series called caged in
02:38fear and the numbers were double what they typically were for prime time so they started making that a
02:43tradition every year and by the end of the 1980s the discovery channel was already well established
02:48with about 50 million subscribers 1996 is a significant year because that is when discovery
02:54expanded by launching a bunch of additional channels that have since evolved into unexpected
03:00directions going through some of these really quick one of these channels was called discovery
03:05travel and living probably one of the least eventful ones because it existed mostly unchanged
03:10before being shut down in the early 2010s a much more eventful channel that they started was
03:15discovery kids i certainly remember watching them when i was younger in the early 2000s they even
03:21started showing discovery kids content on nbc on saturday mornings in 2009 the toy company hasbro
03:28paid 300 million dollars to acquire 50 percent of discovery kids the network was then relaunched as
03:34the hub if you remember that and some of the new shows were designed to promote hasbro products
03:39in 2014 it was then re rebranded as discovery family the company also started discovery science in 1996
03:47that has since been renamed the science channel and they started discovery civilization in 2002
03:54the new york times bought half of that channel to have it relaunched as discovery times then in 2008
04:00shortly after the new york times sold their share back to discovery it rebranded yet again as
04:06id investigation discovery that would feature mostly true crime type shows also i want to include
04:12here that two years after the rest of these in 1998 discovery started the discovery health channel in
04:182011 that was then replaced with own the oprah winfrey network that was started as a 50 50 joint venture
04:26with oprah winfrey's company harpo though discovery has since bought out most of her shares i realized that
04:32these discovery branded channels have gone through a lot of changes that can be tricky to follow and
04:36i promise that things are going to be much more straightforward with the next category on my list
04:41other channels for this part i want to talk about some cable channels that discovery has owned under
04:46completely different branding in 1991 for example they made their first major acquisition when they
04:52bought the learning channel back then it had mostly educational programming so the name was fitting and it
04:58made perfect sense to pair it with the discovery channel fitting in nicely with john hendrick's
05:02original mission however shows like trading spaces that blended education with reality show components
05:08have since motivated a shift in the channel's direction towards shows like toddlers and tiaras and 90
05:13day fiance in 1996 they teamed up with bbc to launch animal planet that quickly became popular through
05:21shows like the crocodile hunter i mean that was like a sensation back then in 2017 discovery made their
05:27biggest acquisition to that point when they made a 14 billion dollar deal to acquire scripts networks
05:33interactive it included the home improvement channel hgtv and its spin-off channel called the diy network
05:40in addition to the food network and its spin-off channel the cooking channel it also included the
05:46travel channel which oddly enough had previously been owned by discovery for a decade starting in 1997
05:53discovery believed that these networks would be a nice fit not only because they featured mostly
05:57non-scripted content much like their existing networks but because it was an opportunity to
06:02gain a much larger female following that they were mostly lacking through those existing networks
06:08shortly after that deal the company simplified its name from discovery communications to discovery and
06:13moved its headquarters from silver spring maryland to new york city they were now controlling something
06:19like 20 percent of ad supported pay television in the united states so i think i have proven that when
06:24it comes to cable television discovery has become one of the biggest though as i'm sure you are already
06:30thinking that might not be the most promising market so the remaining categories on my list are
06:35attempts to expand beyond cable television with the next one being retail stores very much like disney
06:42and warner brothers were already doing discovery set out to open a chain of mall-based stores that were
06:47mostly intended to promote their media business by selling heavily branded products in 1995 they
06:53started out by acquiring a chain of 11 stores in the south that really seems like it was a perfect fit
07:00i say that because those stores already specialized in selling educational products and because
07:04amazingly they were already called discovery stores they only had to add the word channel into the name
07:10at the time of that deal john hendricks said that he wanted to open as many as 350 of them over the next
07:16two years which may have been overly ambitious though the following year they did spend another 40
07:22million dollars to acquire a bigger chain that was then mostly converted into discovery channel stores
07:28by 2007 there were over 100 of them found in most u.s states but they were losing money according to
07:34variety they were losing 30 million dollars each year well discovery had just hired a new ceo named dave
07:41zaslav who was very concerned with cutting costs considering that discovery channel dot com had
07:47grown like crazy over the past year where they were selling almost all the same items that were
07:51available in those stores he decided to shut down all 100 of them and that was the end of it
07:57honestly given the state of shopping malls and physical retail in general today that was probably a
08:02smart time to pull the plug on it my next category on my list is the quickest one but still significant
08:08sports just a few highlights here in 2012 discovery acquired 20 of eurosport and over the next few
08:16years they acquired the rest of it eurosport is a sizable group of television channels that are
08:21mostly in europe and ever since discovery has been making major deals to acquire the rights to air
08:26sporting events most notably they have become heavily involved with golf even starting a discovery golf
08:32division in 2018. that year they made a 2 billion dollar deal with the pga to broadcast and stream
08:38the tour outside of the us and then the following year they started a streaming service called golf tv
08:44that was shut down a few years after and then on top of all that they acquired the magazine golf digest
08:50again i do not want to go too far into this one but discovery has spent a lot of money over the past
08:54decade on deals related to sports my final category is arguably the most impactful one on the list
09:01in 2022 discovery completed its merger with warner media at&t had acquired it for 85 billion dollars
09:10a few years earlier so it is such a large deal that it can be hard to follow everything that is
09:15happening with it to keep things simple i'm just gonna say that warner media consists of the warner
09:19brothers film studio a bunch of cable channels including cnn tnt hbo and cartoon network not to mention
09:27all the dc properties like batman and superman and i want to be clear that this merger was not the
09:33equivalent of discovery being absorbed into a larger company if anything it was more like discovery
09:38was absorbing warner into their business they assumed 55 billion dollars in debt through this deal
09:44and discovery ceo dave zaslov was the one put in charge of the combined company at&t wanted to
09:51better focus on its core business while discovery likely saw this as an opportunity to become more
09:56competitive with streaming warner media had started hbo max in 2020 and discovery had launched
10:02discovery plus at the beginning of the following year at the time of the merger the plan was to
10:06combine the services but they ultimately decided against it but still they believed that the deal
10:11would result in three billion dollars in cost savings and give them the rights to a lot of
10:15valuable properties well in june of 2025 exactly eight days before discovery's 40th anniversary by the
10:23way it was announced that warner brothers discovery would be splitting apart into two separate companies
10:30streaming and studios is the name of one that will include warner brothers dc studios hbo and hbo max
10:37while global networks will include discovery and most of the other television networks as far as i can
10:43tell discovery will be leaving the merger with some new cable channels and a lot of extra debts and at this
10:49point the future of discovery really seems to be reliant on the success of discovery plus so we will
10:55have to wait and see how everything comes together and if it will be attractive enough to compensate for
10:59that extra debt in the falling television numbers let me know in the comments what do you think about
11:04discovery obviously there's a range of things that we can talk about here but i think i am most
11:09interested in hearing about your thoughts on the overall story you know how a five million dollar
11:14investment has grown into such a massive business do you agree with the steps and the directions that
11:19they have taken to grow this large or do you wish things had happened differently and finally i want
11:24to know is this company bigger than you realized and if so what specifically stood out to you the most
11:30and any other thoughts you have about discovery or anything else in this video
11:34leave them in the comments i'd like to hear what you have to say thank you for watching
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