Discovery Channel, also known as simply Discovery and previously known as The Discovery Channel, is an American cable channel and the second flagship namesake asset of Warner Bros. Discovery that is best known for airing ongoing reality and educational programming.
Launched on June 17, 1985, it initially broadcast documentary television programming focused primarily on popular science, nature, technology, and history. Since the 2010s, it had become increasingly dominated by programs that focused on conspiracy theories or promoted pseudoscience.
By June 2012, Discovery Channel was the third most widely distributed subscription channel in the United States, behind now-sibling channel TBS and the Weather Channel; it is available in 409 million households globally. As of November 2023, Discovery Channel is available to approximately 71,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its peak of 99,000,000 in 2011.
Contents
History
John Hendricks founded the channel and its parent company, Cable Educational Network Inc., in 1982. Several investors (including the BBC, Allen & Company, and Venture America) raised $5 million in start-up capital to launch the network.
The Discovery Channel began broadcasting on June 17, 1985. It was initially available to 156,000 households and broadcast for 12 hours each day between 3 p.m. and 3 a.m. About 75 percent of its program content had never been broadcast on U.S. television before. In its early years, the channel's focus centered on educational programming in the form of cultural and wildlife documentaries, and science and historical specials. It also broadcast some Soviet programming during this time, including the news program Vremya. The channel also carried two teletext services over its VBI during this time. Infotext offered news from the Associated Press, as well as information about agribusiness and agriculture, including commodity prices from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on a 15-minute delay. Datavizion offered trivia, strange news stories, games and a satellite TV guide. Both services originated from WHA-TV in Madison, Wisconsin, and were run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
During the late 90s to early 2000s, the channel began to attract a broader audience by incorporating more reality-based series focusing on automotive, occupational, and investigative series. Although the refocused programming strategy proved popular, Discovery Channel's ratings began to decline by the middle of the 2000s. Some critics said such shows strayed from Discovery's intention of providing more educationally based shows aimed at helping viewers learn about the world around them. In 2005, Discovery changed its programming focus to include more popular science and historical themes. The network's ratings eventually recovered in 2006. Discovery's programming today mostly incorporates factual content and reality television
On January 4, 2006, Discovery Communications announced that anchor Ted Koppel, executive producer Tom Bettag, and eight other former staff members from the ABC newsmagazine Nightline were joining Discovery Channel. The network was nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards that year for shows including The Flight that Fought Back (a documentary about the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001) and Deadliest Catch (a reality series about a group of seafood fishermen).
Programming
Programming on the flagship Discovery Channel in the U.S. is primarily focused on reality television series, such as speculative investigation (with shows such as MythBusters, Unsolved History, and Best Evidence), automobiles, and occupations (such as Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch). A popular annual feature on the channel is Shark Week, which airs on Discovery during the summer months.
Discovery has also featured documentaries specifically aimed at families and younger audiences. Other popular programs have included How It's Made, Cash Cab, and Man vs. Wild.
Non-television ventures
Pro Cycling Team
Shortly before the 2004 Tour de France, Discovery Channel announced it would become the primary sponsor of a professional bicycling team starting in 2005, featuring the then-seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, whose wins were voided after he was proven to have cheated via doping. After the 2007 victory with the Spaniard Alberto Contador, Discovery Channel discontinued the cycling sponsorship.
Store
The Discovery Channel stores first opened in 1995. By 1997, the chain had 17 US and 1 UK stores. At that time, the chain was building a flagship store in Washington, DC, with three levels themed to various environments—sea and underground, land and outer space, aviation and science—to be opened in February 1998, with another flagship store in San Francisco to be opened in November 1998.
On May 17, 2007, Discovery Communications announced it would close its standalone and mall-based stores. Hudson Group will continue to operate the Discovery Channel Airport Stores, and the website remains in operation.
Telescope
Discovery Channel funded the construction of the Lowell Discovery Telescope, in partnership with Lowell Observatory.
Website
Discovery.com is the Discovery Channel's official website, which primarily provides information on the channel's programming and additional content, including articles, tied to those shows.
Marketing and branding
The Discovery Channel's first logo was a television screen picturing a map of the world. For two decades, starting in 1987, the channel's logo incorporated the Discovery wordmark rendered in the Aurora Bold Condensed font with a circular shape in front of it. The circle usually took the form of a rising sun, or an animated version of the Vitruvian Man. Discovery Channel's previous slogans had been "Explore Your World" and "There's No Thrill Like Discovery." Keeping with its changing focus away from strictly educational programming toward reality TV, the slogan was changed in the early 2000s to "Entertain Your Brain".
In 1995, the channel's name was simplified to "Discovery Channel", dropping "The" from its name. A globe became a permanent part of the logo, and an underline was added to the bottom of the logo
On March 31, 2008, Discovery unveiled a new logo, which took effect on-air on April 15, 2008 (coinciding with the fourth season premiere of Deadliest Catch). The new logo was designed by Viewpoint Creative, and integrated Discovery's long-time globe iconography into the "D" lettering of the wordmark, creating a monogram that was usable as a standalone icon. The launch was accompanied by a new advertising campaign, "The World is Just Awesome", which featured scenes of Discovery personalities singing an adapted version of the song "I Love the Mountains". Discovery Channel president John Ford explained that the campaign was intended to "showcase our earned place in the greater pop culture landscape".
In August 2013 (coinciding with Shark Week), the aforementioned monogram became the main on-air logo as part of a new imaging campaign, "Grab Life By the Globe", which was designed to emphasize the channel's current focus on personality-driven programming. The logo was portrayed in promos with visual effects relevant to their respective program.
On April 1, 2019, Discovery unveiled a new logo, maintaining a refreshed version of the previous globe and D monogram. The new branding is accompanied by another new imaging campaign, "The World is Ours", which features scenes of Discovery personalities singing the Blue Swede version of "Hooked on a Feeling". The static version of the globe icon uses a non-standard projection that shows all continents, reflecting Discovery's presence as an international brand.
Related and international units
Related channel
Discovery en Español is an American pay television channel that was launched as the Spanish-language version of the Discovery Channel. It is operated by the Latin American division of Warner Bros. Discovery International in Miami, Florida.
As of February 2015, approximately 6,476,000 American households (5.6% of households with television) receive Discovery en Español.
International
Discovery Channel reaches 431 million homes in 170 countries. Discovery Communications currently offers 29 network brands in 33 languages. In a number of countries, Discovery's channels are available on digital satellite platforms with multiple language soundtracks or subtitles including Spanish, German, Russian, French, Czech, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Turkish, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Latvian, Arabic, Slovene, Estonian, Japanese, Korean and Serbian. In 2011, a separate Tamil-language channel was launched. In Bulgaria, Discovery has, since 2000–2001, displayed Bulgarian subtitles by all cable providers and since 2010 – with Bulgarian dubbing for some shows.
In Australia, the Discovery Channel is part of a six-channel package (not including timeshifts) on digital subscription television, available on Foxtel, Optus TV and AUSTAR.
In New Zealand, the Australian version of Discovery is broadcast on SKY Network Television.
The Canadian version of Discovery was established in 1995 by Labatt Communications, and before 2024 the channel was owned by joint venture of Bell Media and WBD.
The channel airs similar programming to its U.S. counterpart, but also airs domestically produced programs to comply with local broadcasting regulations (which, in the past, included the daily science newsmagazine Daily Planet cancelled in 2018). Some of its original series (such as, most prominently, How It's Made) have been picked up in the U.S. by Discovery's sister networks (such as Science Channel), but others have not necessarily aired on Discovery's networks. Since 2018, the channel has increasingly aired blocks of fiction programming with science- or technology-oriented themes.
In June 2024, Rogers Sports & Media announced that it had acquired the Canadian rights to all WBD factual and lifestyle brands beginning January 1, 2025, including Discovery Channel. Bell subsequently announced that it would enter into a licensing agreement with NBCUniversal for two of its Discovery-branded channels, with Discovery being relaunched as USA Network on January 1, 2025. A new iteration of Discovery owned by Rogers concurrently launched the same day.
Controversies
RFID
In August 2008, it was reported by The Consumerist that Discovery Channel had preempted an episode of MythBusters examining RFID security in regard to its implementation in credit cards before its original broadcast because the episode would upset credit card companies, who are major advertisers on Discovery Channel. It was later determined that the decision not to investigate the issue was made by Beyond Productions, the MythBusters production company, and was not made by Discovery Channel or their advertising department.
Enigmatic Malaysia
An ad promoting Enigmatic Malaysia, a special series on the network meant to highlight the cultural heritages of Malaysia, mistakenly featured Balinese Pendet dancers. This prompted outrage from Balinese dancers, who posted messages demanding that Malaysia apologize over the misinformation, which then sparked a series of street protests. Further demands were made from the local governments, cultural historians and the tourism ministry in Indonesia for Malaysia to clarify the situation. The Malaysian government reportedly offered an apology, which was rejected by the Indonesian tourism minister, since the apology was given informally by phone; the Indonesian tourism minister demanded a written apology to make it more accountable.
Shark Week
Shark Week, Discovery's annual shark-themed programming block, has been criticized for sensationalism and the promotion of junk science.
Romanian RCS&RDS
In November 2012, the Romanian RCS&RDS, the largest company of its kind on the internal market, interrupted its carriage of Discovery Communications channels, including Discovery Channel. The CEO of Discovery Communications Mark Hollinger sent an open letter in his attempt to counteract the action of RCS&RDS, attracting the attention to the negation of the alleged right of the viewer to choose the viewed channels. In turn, RCS&RDS issued a press statement accusing of hypocrisy Hollinger's discourse attentive at the needs of viewers and attracted attention to the fact that, during negotiations, the main preoccupations of the Discovery representatives was maintaining as high as possible tariffs and monetary gains".
After four years of absence, on December 30, 2016, the Discovery Channel and its sister channel TLC returned to the RCS&RDS CATV, IPTV and DTH networks.
Eaten Alive
Eaten Alive was a television program in which wildlife filmmaker Paul Rosolie was purportedly going to be "eaten alive" by an anaconda. It aired on December 7, 2014. When the special aired, the anaconda attacked Rosolie but did not swallow him, as its title had implied, prompting numerous complaints of a bait and switch.
World’s Ultimate Frontier
In February 2024, a group of US congressmen sent a letter to the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery criticizing World's Ultimate Frontier, a joint production between Discovery and Chinese state media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN), for "whitewashing genocide" of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. They called on Discovery to "suspend this partnership with CGTN immediately and to abstain from entering into any similar partnership with any other agent of CCP influence."