E! emerged in 1990 when Time Warner and Home Box Office (HBO), acting as the managing partner for five major cable operators, sought to transform the floundering cable network Movietime into one providing 24-hour coverage of the entertainment industry. Movietime was subsequently revamped and relaunched under a new name and logo, E! Entertainment Television, which premiered that year as the only 24-hour network with original, short-form programming dedicated to the world of entertainment. Long-form programming production began at E! in 1991 with Talk Soup, a daily, half-hour parody of America's daytime talk show phenomenon. Hosted by Greg Kinnear, Talk Soup became the network’s first major hit.

Capitalizing on the nations increasing hunger for around-the-clock access to celebrities, E!’s first Oscar guide show premiered in 1991, setting the stage for E!’s Signature program Live From the Red Carpet. In 1994, comedian Joan Rivers became the host of E!’s live Oscar telecast, transforming the coverage into a ratings bonanza and establishing a decade-long network franchise.

Several months after River’s debut with Live From the Red Carpet, E! Launched Howard Stern, a nightly, half-hour show featuring a compilation of raunchy sketches from the shock jock’s morning radio program. Howard Stern quickly became one of the network’s top-rated series, albeit a perennially controversial one.

E! benefited from more controversial programming the following year when it ran full, gravel-to-gravel coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. The network’s trial coverage posted huge ratings games and cemented the network’s reputation for bold, irreverent, and revealing programming.

Seeking to further brand itself as the leading source of television for the inside scoop on celebrity lifestyles, in 1996 E! launched the docudrama, The E! True Hollywood Story, as a one- and two-hour expose into the real life dramas of the rich and famous. True Hollywood Story, with celebrity profiles including Demi Moore, Martha Stewart, Diana Ross, Eminem, Anna Kournikova, and Michael Jackson, became a nightly prime-time program in 1999. That same year,  Rolling Stone named the Emmy-nominated program as one of the decade's most influential shows.

Other significant recent E! programming ventures include Revealed and It’s Good to Be. Revealed debuted with host Jules Asner in 2001 as a one-hour series that sheds light on the lives of A-List celebrities, including Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, and Halle Berry. It’s Good to Be debuted on the network soon thereafter and turns the spotlight on celebrities’ financial assets and extravagant spending habits.

As it has since it's inception, E! continues to Target the prized 18-to-49 adult demographic and remains one of the most recognizable brands in cable television for this age-group, ranking in the top 15 out of more than 100 established cable networks in brand awareness. The network has increasingly struggled, however, to maintain a healthy share of this audience in the face of mounting competition from rival cable channels such as Music Television (MTV) and Video Hits 1 (VH1) and new and highly successful reality programming ventures from the broadcast networks.

In order to maintain and expand its share of style-conscious, entertainment-oriented young adults, E! developed its own reality programming roster with entries such as The Anna Nicole Smith Show, which debuted in the summer of 2002 to favorable ratings and critical infamy. The Anna Nicole Smith Show ran  for two seasons as a weekly, half-hour reality sitcom featuring the life of outlandish model/playmate/pop culture sensation Anna Nicole Smith and her unique circle of family and friends. More recent E! forays into reality programing have included Celebrities Uncensored and Wild On.

Leveraging its strength in the fashion sector of entertainment and by repurposing shows such as Fashion Emergency, a groundbreaking makeover program, E! launched the Style Network in 1998 as the only 24-hour Network devoted to Lifestyle programming. The Style Network features original series covering a broad range of categories within the lifestyle genre, including appearance, home, food and entertainment, and leisure. Style Network currently covers more than 30 million Nielsen homes.

E! Network controls production for both E! Entertainment Television and the Style Network from its Los Angeles-based headquarters. Advertising and affiliate sales offices for the network are based in New York with additional affiliate sales offices in Connecticut. Both networks maintain websites, and E! Online– which provides entertainment news, original features, gossip, reviews, games, live-event coverage, and E!-branded merchandise– averages more than 100 million page views per month.

The Comcast Communications/Walt Disney Company partnership assumes 80 percent control of E! Entertainment Network in 1997, with 50 percent of that block solely owned by Comcast. Comcast, the largest cable operator in the United States, remains the network’s largest shareholder with Disney and Liberty Media holding significant stakes as well.