A Curious Discovery: An Entrepreneur's Story

by John S. Hendricks

Once again, by identifying early the emergence of the Internet—and especially noting how it was being used to satisfy curiosity—Discovery was already well on its cyber-way by the time the Web exploded. We began as early as 1998 to add video clips to all of our network websites. And, by 2006, we were looking for ways to dramatically accelerate our presence on the Internet through the acquisition of hot new content enterprises. One of those companies was HowStuffWorks—which, by 2007, when we acquired it, had tens of millions of annual visitors. HowStuffWorks was headed by Jeff Arnold, an Internet pioneer who had previously founded WebMD. We quickly began adding video resources to its website. A Compete.com survey reported that the site attracted more than 58 million visitors in 2008. We also made a significant number of acquisitions to increase our online video presence, most recently our acquisition of Revision3. Revision3 produces and distributes Web television shows on niche topics. The company was founded in April 2005. A year later while checking out YouTube (this is where surfing the Web is valuable), I first ran across the creative and endlessly clever Philip DeFranco, who hosts his own daily Internet show. To me, DeFranco’s daily episodes about politics, pop culture, and world news stood out from others for its wit, respect for the audience, and high production values. It wasn’t long before Revision3 became the new home for programming innovators like Philip DeFranco...