Who launched the Discovery Channel in the United States?

John Samuel Hendricks (born March 29, 1952) is an American businessman and is the founder and former chairman of Discovery, Inc., a broadcasting and film production company which owns the Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet networks, among other ventures. On March 20, 2014, after 32 years at the helm, he made public his decision to retire as chairman of Discovery Communications after the annual shareholders' meeting of May 16, 2014. He moved on to found CuriosityStream, an ad-free, on-demand nonfiction streaming service.

John Hendricks founded the Cable Educational Network, Inc., in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1982 to provide documentary programming to cable broadcasters. On June 17, 1985, Hendricks launched the Discovery Channel with $5 million in start-up capital led by the American investment firm Allen & Company. Today, Discovery's main shareholders include John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, and Advance/Newhouse (publishers of "Vanity Fair", "New Yorker", and "Vogue").