I've always enjoyed their shows...I had no idea that it was so popular though...
they are HQed in Knoxville aren't they?
The escapist appeal of looking at other peoples beautiful homes turned Home & Garden Television into the third most-watched cable network in 2016, ahead of CNN and behind only Fox News and ESPN. Riding HGTVs reality shows, parent company Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. has seen its shares rise more than 30 percent this year, outperforming bigger rivals like Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox Inc. and Viacom Inc.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...er-upset-you-how-the-network-beat-cnn-in-2016
Scripps Networks started out as part of Scripps-Howard Broadcasting which was a subsidiary of the E.W. Scripps Company which was headquartered in Cincinnati. HGTV was launched within SHB, they grew and launched the DIY Network using a lot of recycled HGTV programming. Then they bought controlling interest of the Food Network with the Tribune Company (WGN) holding on to a significant percentage of the Food Network partnership. Scripps launched the Fine Living Network out of California which failed and became the Cooking Channel by repurposing a lot of the Food Network's programming. Later the Travel Channel and Great American Country (GAC) were acquired by Scripps Networks. Scripps Networks bought Shop At Home and took a bath on it... sold the pieces for maybe $75,000,000 on about a billion dollar purchase. SN wasted a ton of money buying websites and other tech ventures in the days of the dot-com-bubble. They lost a billion or more on a British web site that switched/signed up utility customers. Basically SNI/SHB hit a home run by launching HGTV, did well with Food, and has been hitting singles and striking out ever since. They now own a large television group in Poland. The parent in Cincy also owned cable TV systems (called TeleScripps at one point), divested those when they launched HGTV, and made the strategic decision to focus on creating content rather than program delivery (cable TV systems).
SNI is controlled by the Scripps family. The last of the third generation died off several years ago and that opened the door for a potential sale to a Disney or a Discovery Communications. But the family has resisted selling to an outside entity.
HGTV started out as a piss ant part of the E.W. Scripps Company but quickly grew into Scripps Networks Interactive and became several times larger than the rest of EWS. EWS owned about a dozen local affiliates of national TV networks, about 3 dozen newspapers, and a newspaper syndication operation. SNI and EWS split into two entities about 10 years ago... both publicly traded but both also completely controlled by super voting shares of a class of stock held by the Scripps family members and trusts.
Scripps Networks Interactive moved their corporate headquarters from Cincinnati to Knoxville soon after the split from EWS. They also have a big footprint in NYC as that is where the Food Network was built.
SNI ended up in Knoxville when the HGTV idea was funded and the original management group went around the country signing up small television production companies to create programming for HGTV. Ross Bagwell had launched a company called Cinetel Productions in Knoxville years earlier. They produced programming for several other cable networks and advertising agencies. Their biggest piece was Club Dance which was a daily program on The Nashville Network. Shade Tree Mechanic was another big production at Cinetel. The HGTV executives liked Knoxville and Cinetel so much that they negotiated a total buyout from Bagwell for about $20,000,000. They got everything for the $20mm... the equipment, employees, office building and studios, and what turned out to be pretty valuable programming with Club Dance and the rest. They were in an interesting position of competing with other cable networks and also having them as customers by licensing them the programming that they owned (TNN paid HGTV/Scripps/Cinetel to produce Club Dance) for many years after the launch of HGTV in Knoxville.
Bagwell's daughter Dee married Jimmy Haslam. Bagwell launched a company similar to Cinetel and Dee now runs it... also out of Knoxville. It was originally called Ross Productions and is now called RIVR Media.
Ken Lowe is the Scripps employee that had the idea for HGTV when he was running the radio division of Scripps Howard. He's been in charge ever since. He attended UNC and is a good friend of Rick Dees. Rick Dees is a nationally syndicated radio show host that first came to fame with the song Disco Duck.
So you can actually connect the dots from a 1970s novelty song, the beginnings of HGTV, and Jimmy Haslam.
