The deal saw plently of business for law firms with a number of clients to be represented in the deal. Debevoise & Plimpton LLP served as legal advisor to Discovery, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP served as legal advisor to Scripps with Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor to the Scripps family with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP serving as legal advisor to Advance/Newhouse. Guggenheim Securities, LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co LLC served as financial advisors to Discovery, Allen & Company LLC and JP Morgan Securities LLC served as financial advisors to Scripps and Evercore Group L.L.C. served as financial advisor to the Scripps family. UBS Investment Bank served as financial advisor to Advance/Newhouse.

International expansion

The move will enable the firm to expand overseas leveraging Discovery’s global distribution and sale as well as grow its global femal audience. The combined company will deliver 7 billion monthly short-form streams as well as create significant cost synergies, estimated at approximately $350 million. The purchase price represents a premium of 34 per cent to Scripps with the transaction is expected to close by early 2018.

Combined strength

The combined company will produce approximately 8,000 hours of original programming annually, be home to approximately 300,000 hours of library content, and will generate a combined 7 billion short-form video streams monthly. Combined, Discovery and Scripps will have nearly 20 per cent share of ad-supported pay-TV audiences in the US Additionally, the combined company will be home to five of the top pay-TV networks for women and will account for over 20 per cent share of women watching primetime pay-TV in the U.S.

Familiar channels

Between them some of the familiar channels they now own are Discovery: Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Science, Eurosport, HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and Great American Country, as well as TVN, a premiere multi-platform provider of entertainment, lifestyle and news content in Poland; UKTV, an independent commercial joint venture with BBC Worldwide; Asian Food Channel, the first pan- regional TV food network in Asia; and lifestyle channel Fine Living Network.

Exciting new chapter

‘This is an exciting new chapter for Discovery…We believe that by coming together with Scripps, we will create a stronger, more flexible and more dynamic media company with a global content engine that can be fully optimised and monetized across our combined networks, products and services in every country around the world,’ said David Zaslav, President and CEO, Discovery Communications. 

Unmatched opportunity

Kenneth W Lowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive said:‘This agreement with Discovery presents an unmatched opportunity for Scripps to grow its leading lifestyle brands across the world and on new and emerging channels including short-form, direct-to-consumer and streaming platforms.’