Discovery Communications

From her ninth-floor office in Bethesda, Judith A. McHale can gaze across a canopy of trees toward Silver Spring and point to the spot where Discovery Communications Inc.'s new headquarters is taking shape. McHale, president and chief operating officer since 1995, has steered the Discovery Channel's parent company through an expansion that now has it bursting at the seams in Bethesda. During her tenure, McHale has guided the launch of two U.S. cable networks and the acquisition of a third, led the company into the retail business with Discovery Channel stores, and pursued an international campaign that's extended its networks to more than 500 million subscribers in 152 countries.

Angling for a larger audience with a mix of fact and fiction, Maryland-based Discovery Communications is retooling its Science Channel, changing the name and logo and doubling down on new shows with star hosts. Starting June 8, the Science Channel will drop the 'channel' and become Science. The move comes after it has recently begun airing fact-based shows ("Through the Wormhole" starring Morgan Freeman) alongside science-fiction ("Firefly") and humor ("An Idiot Abroad" with Ricky Gervais)

NEW YORK - New York Times Co., publisher of its namesake newspaper, agreed yesterday to buy a 50 percent stake in Discovery Communications Inc.'s Discovery Civilization digital cable-television channel for $100 million. The companies will develop the channel under a joint venture, they said in a statement. They also agreed that Discovery Communications, 49 percent owned by Liberty Media Corp., will buy $40 million of programming from the Times Co.'s production unit in the next five years.

When Maryland-based Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey announced a partnership in 2009 to launch Winfrey's OWN cable channel, it immediately vaulted the Silver Spring media operation into a new league. Oprah's move to Discovery was the talk of the entertainment industry, and within hours of the announcement, J.P. Morgan was circulating a financial analysis titled "Much Ado About Oprah. " "Discovery appears to be the winner in this announcement," the Morgan analysis said.

Discovery Communications Inc., the parent company of several cable networks, said yesterday that it will acquire a controlling stake in a channel devoted to travel.The Bethesda-based firm said it will pay Paxson Communications Corp. $20 million for a 70 percent interest in the Travel Channel.Paxson acquired the network from Landmark Communications Inc., which also operates the Weather Channel. Paxson will retain a 30 percent interest in the Travel Channel.The Travel Channel has 20.8 million subscribers and airs programs on subjects like traveling tips and vacation getaway profiles.

Discovery Communications Inc. said yesterday that it will build a $150 million headquarters in Silver Spring, relocating about 800 jobs from Bethesda.The international multimedia company could receive more than $7.2 million in economic incentives, said James D. Fielder, acting secretary of the state Department of Business and Economic Development.Because the company's four-acre site in downtown Silver Spring will be located in an enterprise zone, it is eligible for about $6.7 million in assistance, he said.

Discovery Communications Inc. said it will help customers "get outfitted to lead the discovery life" when it opens its new 25,000-square-foot store in the MCI Center in Washington next year.The store, named Discovery Channel Destination, hopes to lure customers with entertainment areas and then capture their dollars on everything from inexpensive items to that jacket a customer may need to juggle two cameras while on safari, said Greg Moyer, president of the company.The Bethesda-based company, which owns the Discovery Channel, Nature Company stores and the Learning Channel, hopes the store will become a tourist destination in Washington.

CBS Corp. will sell half of its unprofitable CBS Eye on People channel to Discovery Communications Inc. as part of a joint venture designed to improve the cable outlet's programming and distribution.Closely held Discovery will manage the channel, which will be renamed Eye on People.The Bethesda company owns the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, 70 percent of Animal Planet and the Nature Co.'s 124-store retail chain, including its 7,000-square-foot Harborplace outlet. The stores are being converted to Discovery Channel stores.

The Maryland comptroller's office is proposing a change in state tax regulations that would save Bethesda-based Discovery Communications Inc. -- parent company of the Discovery Channel -- $340,000 a year on its tax bill.Although the measure would apply to other TV or film production companies based in Maryland with similar operations, the biggest beneficiary by far is believed to be Discovery Communications.The company, its chairman, John S. Hendricks, and his wife, Maureen, were among the larger contributors to Gov. Parris N. Glendening's gubernatorial campaign.

The news that "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is going to end after 25 years so that its host can devote herself to a new cable channel set off reverberations in TV and financial circles late last week. But nowhere was the effect felt more keenly than in Silver Spring, where the Maryland-based Discovery Communications was vaulted into a new realm of prominence and prestige as the future home of The Oprah Winfrey Network. Discovery, a cable channel once known for showing inexpensive documentaries, has found itself the talk of both Wall Street and Madison Avenue, as everyone from financial analysts to managers of network affiliates and -owned stations that depend on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to provide an essential lead-in to their early evening newscasts wondered how the move would affect them.

Police shot and killed a gunman wearing what appeared to be explosives after he took three people hostage at the Discovery Channel's headquarters Wednesday afternoon, officials said. The building was to reopen briefly Thursday for employees to return, although the lobby remained closed as police investigate. Authorities identified the gunman as James J. Lee. Lee, 43, who was upset with the channel over its programming and had a history of protesting the company, entered the building at Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road about 1 p.m., wielding a gun and wearing silver canisters later described as "explosive devices," and "told everyone to stop moving," according to police.

The news that "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is going to end after 25 years so that its host can devote herself to a new cable channel set off reverberations in TV and financial circles late last week. But nowhere was the effect felt more keenly than in Silver Spring, where the Maryland-based Discovery Communications was vaulted into a new realm of prominence and prestige as the future home of The Oprah Winfrey Network. Discovery, a cable channel once known for showing inexpensive documentaries, has found itself the talk of both Wall Street and Madison Avenue, as everyone from financial analysts to managers of network affiliates and -owned stations that depend on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to provide an essential lead-in to their early evening newscasts wondered how the move would affect them.

T he news that "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is going to end after 25 years so that its host can devote herself to a new cable channel set off reverberations in TV and financial circles late last week. But nowhere was the effect felt more keenly than in Silver Spring, where the Maryland-based Discovery Communications was vaulted into a new realm of prominence and prestige as the future home of The Oprah Winfrey Network. Discovery, a cable channel once known for showing inexpensive documentaries, has found itself the talk of both Wall Street and Madison Avenue, as everyone from financial analysts to managers of network affiliates and -owned stations that depend on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to provide an essential lead-in to their early evening newscasts wondered how the move would affect them.

Foulger-Pratt gets APG center contract The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $49.5 million contract to Foulger-Pratt Contracting LLC of Rockville to design and construct a command headquarters for the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The three-story, 142,525-square-foot facility will serve as headquarters for about 600 employees involved in planning, testing and assessing artillery, vehicles and equipment for the nation's armed forces. The project is tied to BRAC, the nationwide military base realignment that is bringing about 10,000 jobs to Harford County.

NEW YORK -- In the last three years, Josh Bernstein rode horses across the Mongolian steppe with nomads, traveled deep into the Amazon to seek out a remote tribe and slept in an igloo on an Austrian glacier to test the conditions faced by Neolithic cavemen. Now he's venturing into another new territory: the Silver Spring-based Discovery Channel, a television network in the midst of its own evolution. Last week, the cable channel plucked Bernstein away from rival network the History Channel, where he has drawn a following as the host of the popular Digging for the Truth series.

Steve Irwin, the conservationist and entertainer known as the Crocodile Hunter, just might leave two legacies: One to the wild animals he sought to protect and another to the cable channel that he helped build. Media analysts say the Animal Planet channel, owned by Silver Spring-based Discovery Communications Inc., became a household name largely because of its larger-than-life star whose daredevil antics drew millions of fans to his wild animal series and documentaries - and introduced them to other shows.

T he news that "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is going to end after 25 years so that its host can devote herself to a new cable channel set off reverberations in TV and financial circles late last week. But nowhere was the effect felt more keenly than in Silver Spring, where the Maryland-based Discovery Communications was vaulted into a new realm of prominence and prestige as the future home of The Oprah Winfrey Network. Discovery, a cable channel once known for showing inexpensive documentaries, has found itself the talk of both Wall Street and Madison Avenue, as everyone from financial analysts to managers of network affiliates and -owned stations that depend on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to provide an essential lead-in to their early evening newscasts wondered how the move would affect them.

NEW YORK -- Discovery Communications Inc. yesterday unveiled a new company and a bold bid to grab a major chunk of Internet business. The Maryland-based television programmer, known for its educational cable channels, said it would invest $500 million to lure Web users away from such competitors as America Online Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. The new company, called Discovery.com Inc., will build on Discovery's online services with a new home page, Discovery Web Express, to be launched Monday.

For most of the past 20 years, sharks have been the biggest stars in the on-air firmament at the Silver Spring-based Discovery Channel. But it's hard to slap advertisements on said man-eaters, and they don't give the best speeches either, so in an effort to raise its global profile, the cable network is sponsoring a predator of a different sort - one Lance Armstrong. The company has never linked itself so publicly with one person, much less an athlete. And few, if any, television networks have thrown their lots so clearly with individual sports stars.