You've no doubt noticed that each day, the stock exchanges are set into motion by the clanging of a bell, rung by the leaders of a company that is in the news for one reason or another.
Thursday, amid the fallout from Mr. Market's chaos during the first part of the week, the Nasdaq bell-ringers were newly public Discovery Communications' (Nasdaq: DISAD) founder and Chairman John Hendricks, CEO David Zaslav, and a host of network notables, including Bindi and Terri Irwin (Bindi the Jungle Girl), Emeril Lagasse (Emeril Green), and Stacy London and Clinton Kelly (What Not to Wear).
Discovery goes back to 1985, when it was launched with 156,000 U.S. subscribers. It now services 1.5 billion folks in 170 countries around the planet. The company became a public entity through an agreement between its former shareholders, Discovery Holding Company and Advance/Newhouse Communications. As a newly public company, 74% of its voting power will be maintained by Discovery Holding investors, and the remaining 26% will be controlled by Advance/Newhouse.
Further, of the Discovery Holding portion, 23% will be under the control of the now-legendary media mogul John Malone, who is the company's chairman as well as the chairman of Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LCAPA). The newly public entity will consist of more than 100 channels and other properties, with more in the offing.
But what's this mean for Foolish investors who might be willing to ante up a few shekels for brand-spanking-new Discovery public shares? In response, I'm going to crawl out on a limb and point out that, with cable and broadband plants generally in place, content to run through their pipes has become progressively more dear (or perhaps "wanting" is a more appropriate adjective). It was clearly for that reason that Brian Roberts and his team at Comcast (NYSE: CMCSA) bid for Disney (NYSE: DIS) in 2004.
It therefore wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if a company like Comcast -- or perhaps Verizon (NYSE: VZ), or even AT&T (NYSE: T) -- were to make a run at newly independent Discovery. Given some of the potential values frequently bandied about for privately held Landmark Communications' Weather Channel, or for E.W. Scripps' (NYSE: SSP) stable (which includes HGTV, the Food Network, and DIY), the scrambling after Discovery could eventually become very intense indeed.
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