[9] Several investors (including the BBC, Allen & Company, and Venture America) raised $5 million in start-up capital to launch the network.

[10] 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.

[11] The channel also carried two teletext services over its VBI during this time, Infotext (offering 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), and Datavizion (offering 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.

In 2007, Discovery Channel's top series included the Emmy Award– and Peabody Award–winning Planet Earth, Dirty Jobs, MythBusters, and Deadliest Catch.

[17] On September 1, 2010, 43-year-old James Jay Lee entered the Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, armed with a handgun.

[20] 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).

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 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".

[30] 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 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.

In a number of countries, Discovery's channels are available on digital satellite platforms with multiple language soundtracks or subtitles including Spanish, German, Russian, Czech, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Turkish, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Arabic, Slovene, Japanese, Korean and Serbian.

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.

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.

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.

[39] In the United Kingdom, Discovery Channel UK airs some common programs as the U.S. version, including MythBusters, American Chopper, How It's Made and Deadliest Catch.

In Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, a Flemish Discovery Channel launched (previously the Dutch version was available for IPTV, DVB-C and DVB-S) on cable (and digital) television on October 1, 2009.

In Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Slovenia, Discovery Channel is carried by most cable television and IPTV providers with all the content subtitled in the respective languages.

In Spain, the channel shares a schedule and programs with Portugal and is available on most satellite and cable platforms, making it possible to broadcast both in Spanish and Portuguese.

The Philippines has its own semifeed derived from the Southeast Asian channel, in which offers regional variations with local advertisements during the commercial breaks.

This prompted outrage from Balinese dancers, who posted messages demanding that Malaysia apologize over the misinformation, which then sparked a series of street protests.

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.