Discovery Communications begins trading as public company

Discovery Communications’ founder and chairman John Hendricks and president and CEO David Zaslav today rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange to commemorate the first day of trading as a public company.

“When we launched Discovery Channel in 1985 with 156,000 subscribers in the US, I never could have envisioned that we would become the leading provider of non-fiction entertainment to more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers around the globe,” said Hendricks in a prepared statement. “This is truly an historic day for Discovery and the realization of a dream. As chairman of the newly public Discovery Communications, I look forward to working with David Zaslav and the senior management team to continue expanding Discovery’s leadership and delivering value for our shareholders in the years to come.”

In conjunction with its first day of trading as a public company, Discovery unveiled an updated corporate logo and launched a new corporate website.

Discovery Communications, Inc., was created as a public company through an agreement between its former shareholders, Discovery Holding Company (DHC) and Advance/Newhouse Communications, to combine their interests in Discovery into a new public company. As a result of the transaction, DHC stockholders and Advance/Newhouse are now stockholders of the new public company, Discovery Communications, Inc.