In the three years before DC’s June 17, 1985, launching to 2 million households through 100 local cable systems, Hendricks attracted $4.5 million in venture capital and an agreement with Group W Satellite Communications to distribute the channel. A ready supply of inexpensive deregulatory cable TV environment in the United States facilitated DC’s launching. While few documentaries could be found on U.S. television in the 1980s, documentary programming prospered in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where a fuller commitment to state-subsidized educational programs were imported from these countries for $250 to $400 per film hour.

This informational programming proved valuable to U.S. cable operators who were looking to add additional channels to justify substantial subscriber rate increases after the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 lifted rate restrictions. This encouraged four major multisystem cable operators (Tele-Communications Inc., Cox Cable Communications Inc., United Cable Television Corp., and Newhouse Broadcasting Corp.) to take a 10 percent stake each in DC. As Cox Cable president remarked, “The Discovery Channel becomes a very useful marketing and community relations tool as we in the cable industry approach deregulation” (PR Newswire, 1986). With vertical ties to the largest cable operators, a national advertising revenue-sharing plan with all cable affiliates, and an advertiser-desired “upscale” target audience, DC grew quickly to 9 million U.S. subscribers in the first year, 50 million by 1990, and 82 million by 2001, the second most widely distributed cable network behind Turner Broadcasting System (TBS).

In its first four years, DC organized its wholly acquired programming into topical blocks (the natural world, science and space, geography, exploration, and history), with periodic, high-profile themed weeks, including Science and Technology Week, and the ongoing summer franchise Shark Week. In 1990, expanded distribution brought revenues that DC used to produce or coproduce original programs for half its schedule. By 1995, a $110 million programming budget produced 400 hours of original programs filling 60 percent of the schedule, with 30 percent acquired from overseas and 10 percent from U.S. producers. Refinements to DC’s 18-hour-per-day schedule include a morning hour of commercial-free educational programming called Assignment Discovery (1989) and home improvement/decorating series in the late morning and afternoon with hosts Lynette Jennings (1991) and Christopher Lowell (1996). Undifferentiated prime-time nature, science, and historical programming was gradually shaped into branded nightly series, including the nature-themed Wild Discovery (1995), the science anthology Sci-Trek (1995), and the behind-the-scenes-oriented On the Inside (1999). Special-event series include the extreme adventure race Eco-Challenge (1996) and Expedition Adventure (1997), which partially funds and films expeditions, including the shipwrecked Titanic (1998), the recovery of the Mercury space capsule Liberty Bell 7 (1999), and a French archaeological exhumation of a woolly mammoth (2000). DC’s most substantial coproduction partner is BBC Worldwide, the commercial branch of the U.K. public broadcasting network. In 1998, a five-year deal worth $565 million included network partnerships in the United States (Animal Planet and BBC America) and Latin America (People 1 Arts and Animal Planet Latin America) and coproduced computer graphic designed specials, including Walking with Dinosaurs, and nature spectaculars, such as Blue Planet: Sea of Life.

Low-cost programming and broad distribution brought surplus revenues and carriage  levels that DCI used to launch and/or acquire additional nonfiction cable networks. In 1991, DCI purchased The Learning Channel from the Financial News Network, exercised its for-credit telecourses and daytime infomercials, and focused programming on “the world of ideas,” a somewhat distinct focus from the “experiential physical world” Of DC programs. In 1996, DCI launched Animal Planet, a network dedicated to wildlife documentaries and domestic pets. The analog network expanded quickly as DCI moved the wildly successful nature franchise Crocodile Hunter from DC to Animal Planet and paid cable/satellite distributors a substantial fee for carriage. DCI also acquired Travel Channel in 1997, launched Discovery Health in 1999, and acquired the Health Network from FOX Cable Networks Group in 2002. In anticipation of digital compression technologies, in 1995 DC planned to create dozens of digital “clubs,” such as “Astronomy Club” or “Science Club,” that would function as separate pay-per-view services offering on-demand programs rather than additional multiplexed niche channels. The initiative, and offshoot of a more ambitious project to create a broader video-on-demand system called “Your Choice TV,” gave way to the creation of four digitally tiered channels in 1996 (Discovery Home and Leisure, Discovery Civilization, Discovery Science, and Discovery Kids) and a fifth in 1998 (Discovery Wings).

The growth of cable/satellite infrastructures internationally facilitated DCI’s rapid expansion into the following regions in 1989, DC Europe (Benelux, Scandinavia); in 1994, DC Asia (Brunei,  Papua New Guinea,  the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore),  DC Latin America (Central America, South America, and the Caribbean), and the Middle East; in 1995, Canada, India, and Australia/New Zealand; in 1996, Africa, Italy, and Germany; and in 1997, Japan and Turkey. Discovery Networks International (DNI), DCI’s subsidiary for international expansion, typically partners with local and regional cable/satellite carriers to share risk, resources, and local expertise and to satisfy foreign ownership restrictions. Often the regional channels are initially offered free to cable/satellite carriers to secure distribution, then small per-subscriber fees are charged. Because little advertising is sold on most of these channels as yet, most of the revenues come from subscriber fees, and as of 2001, only DC Europe has turned a profit. DNI’s professed commitment to “localizing” each channel typically begins with locally produced promotional campaigns, then a gradual splitting of feeds for language/dialect diversification. For example, the Miami-based DC Latin America began in 1994 as a single Spanish-subtitled channel and then in 1996 added the Portuguese-language DC Brazil. By 1999, DNI had created separate Spanish language feeds for the southern cone of Latin America, Spain, and the U.S. Hispanic market. The bulk of DC's programming remains panregional, and special-event programs are designed for Global promotion and reach, such as ”Watch with the World” events, which are shown in all regions simultaneously in prime time, including Cleopatra's Palace: In Search of a Legend (1999),  Raising the Mammoth (2000), and Inside the Space Station (2000). 

In 1985, Science magazine described the newly arrived DC as “something like a Sorbonne of the tube– a Loosely structured, informal University where you can take in whatever classes or lectures interest you” (Meyer, p.90). In the new millennium, DCI rather resembles a globally integrated media conglomerate where branded content designed for international markets drives programming decisions. As DCI President Judith McHale boasted with reference to Raising the Mammoth, “Our wide reach lets us extend this global media event across our worldwide network of branded channels, in concert with our many other content and retail platforms” (PR Newswire, 2000). DCI sold prehistoric-themed merchandise through its retail stores, Discovery.com offered online sweepstakes, the Travel Channel promoted “Discovery-branded” trips to archaeological digs, and all companion networks produced “complementary” programs to promote the event.