New Cable Channel Looks for Good Life
By DARRELL SATZMAN
Staff Reporter
Ken Solomon claims to be feeling fine.
The president of Fine Living, Scripps Networks’ fourth cable channel, Solomon is touting a new distribution deal as a signal that the channel dedicated to “maximizing precious free time” is on the cusp of gaining a wider audience.
Following its limited launch last month, Fine Living signed a long-term agreement on April 16 with The National Cable Television Cooperative, a Lenexa, Kan.-based organization representing more than 100 independent, mostly Midwestern, cable operators reaching 13.5 million subscribers. The deal follows Fine Living’s initial launch agreement with Time Warner Cable, a deal that guaranteed eventual distribution to 5 million homes in Palm Springs, San Diego, Milwaukee and Cincinnati. It is presently in 2 million homes.
“It’s a very important deal, a milestone agreement,” Solomon said. “By having the NCTC and Time Warner it shows people you have a broad reach, from a major market provider to the smallest rural providers.”
The idea, he said, is to make L.A.-based Fine Living the ESPN or CNN of its niche.
He has his work cut out for him.
ESPN and CNN reach 86 million and 85 million households, respectively, according to the National Cable Telecommunications Association. And that doesn’t include satellite television, which Fine Living has yet to crack.
What’s more, there are concerns Fine Living is too highbrow to appeal to Middle America and that it and too closely resembles Scripps’ other channels, the Food Network, Home & Garden Television and the Do-It-Yourself Network.
“To some degree they have found an independent niche, but they’ll also be competing against their own networks, as well as Oxygen, Lifetime and others,” said Sheldon Altfeld, a television producer who runs Cable Maven, a Los Angeles-based consulting business.
Pay for play
Solomon wouldn’t put a figure on Scripps’ investment in Fine Living, other than it was in the “tens of millions,” and predicted that the channel would reach profitability in three or four years. Others put the timeline at closer to a decade.
“They will easily burn through $100 million to $150 million before they get to profitability,” said John Higgins, deputy editor of Broadcast & Cable magazine. “That’s the cost of doing business.”
Among those costs are launch fees one-time, per-subscriber payments to cable operators that essentially guarantee the channel will generate programming. Launch fees, which range from a few dollars to $10 per subscriber, are returned as the channel develops an audience.
Citing ongoing negotiations with other distributors, Solomon declined to say how much Fine Living has paid in launch fees thus far. Launch fees and production costs will be the major expenses for Fine Living, which is generating its own programming.
The question is how many eyeballs will Fine Living attract with programming about building dream houses, vacationing in Africa and choosing the right Chardonnay.
“Scripps keeps doing the same thing,” Higgins said. “I call this a Hamburger Helper channel. It’s drawing leftover viewers from the Food Network and Home & Garden. You stir in the vegetables and spices to make that one pound of hamburger look like two pounds of dinner.”
HGTV, launched in 1994, reaches 70.5 million households; the Food Network, launched in 1993 and acquired by Scripps in 1997, reaches 60.4 million; and Do-It-Yourself is in 5 million homes following its 1999 launch.
Solomon rejected the notion Fine Living is either an imitation or an amalgamation of Scripps’ other channels. Unlike other companies with multiple outlets, Fine Living will not reuse programming from other Scripps channels, he said.
“There are similarities between Fine Living and our bigger sister networks, but it’s in the approach to the programming and not the content,” he said. “The key to the programming is that it is reflective of the core brand value, which is, ‘Live like you mean it.'”
Solomon said that Fine Living’s target audience households with incomes of more than $75,000 is especially attractive to advertisers, who he expects to be lured by shows like “Your Private Island,” which introduces viewers to tropical islands that can be rented for vacations. “Road & Track Presents: Ride of Your Life,” a show about some of the most desirable cars in the world.
“We’ve been able to line up over three dozen major blue chip advertisers by going to them and saying, ‘We give you a laser-sharp shot to the heart of your premier customer,'” said Solomon, a former president of Universal Studios Television.
Advertisers include BMW of North America, Coca-Cola Co. and Prudential Insurance Company of America.
In addition to the television channel, Fine Living also operates a Web site and a print magazine. Only one issue of the magazine has appeared it was distributed free with daily newspapers in large cities and Solomon said the company still has not decided if the publication will be a quarterly or a monthly. Right now, it’s clear that the Web site and the magazine are primarily vehicles for raising awareness about the cable channel.
FINE LIVING
Launch: March 18, 2002
Owner: E.W. Scripps Co.
Employees: 30 at Los Angeles headquarters, some support staff in Knoxville, Tenn.
Current Households: 2 million
Distribution Deals: Time Warner Cable, gradual rollout guaranteeing 5 million households by 2003; National Cable Television Cooperative, potential of up to 13.5 million households at discretion of independent operators.
Content: Leisure activities; Shows include “American Home,” “Radical Sabbatical,” “The Great Adventure” and “Road & Track Presents: Ride of Your Life.”
