Ken Lowe

This interview originally appeared in the MIPTV 2010 issue of World Screen.

 

Since launching HGTV in 1994, Scripps Networks has become the leading developer of lifestyle content, producing popular programming for television, online, satellite radio, print and new-media platforms. One of the keys to Scripps’ success, as Ken Lowe explains, is the fierce loyalty its channels—from Food Network to HGTV, DIY Network to Cooking Channel and Travel Channel—engender in viewers.

 

WS: Watching “wherever and whenever” is becoming increasingly popular with viewers. What is Scripps doing to satisfy that desire?

LOWE: We are very well suited for the future. We were one of the first cable networks that made VOD deals and that was due to the fact that we own more than 95 percent of all our content. As a matter of fact, we have one of the largest nonfiction video-content libraries in the world. That’s been really our goal from day one, to build and own our content in these very vibrant categories of home, food and now travel. We were also one of the earliest providers of online video content. If you go to any one of our websites now, you’ll see our vision, which is to be the main content provider in the food, home and travel categories.

 

We’ve been very careful to protect the value of our content. That is critical at all levels. Cable network programmers like us have real issues with distributors that put so much content online and that is a real battle right now. Whether it’s Disney or whomever, the issues are: how much content they will move off their cable networks and put online, how much they are allowed to move and what does that do to strain the relationship between the content provider and our distribution partners? We’re working with distributors and some of our new agreements, the ones with Time Warner and Comcast come to mind, involve the TV Everywhere model [which provides authentication: if you already pay a cable subscription, you have the right to access that cable content online]. This is just one person’s opinion, but I think the Comcast-NBC Universal merger could actually advance TV Everywhere on a faster timetable because there you have a large content provider and a large distributor. So if the TV Everywhere model is going to start taking off, I would suspect we’d see it there, although other distributors are moving aggressively in that area as well and we are in discussions with them. We really share a common goal with our content distributors of protecting this model.

 

We’ve seen what happened to the music industry and it’s important that we move with some caution and with some mutual understanding [between cable programmers and distribution platforms] that protects the model for long term.

 

WS: The programming your channels offer provides a lot of “takeaway” information for viewers, which seems tailor-made for on demand.

LOWE: Very much so. And regarding the takeaway value of our information, and in particular, the “wherever, whenever” viewing mentality, we’ve always felt that our content engages audiences in a unique way. For example, we pioneered several years ago a study with Simmons on audience engagement. That study showed, and has continued to show, that our audiences are highly engaged. Simply put, if you are watching a show about remodeling your bathroom and you happen to be interested in remodeling your bathroom, that show offers more than just entertainment value, it provides information value. For example, if you see a commercial in that show for Delta faucets, or Kohler sinks, it’s no longer a “commercial,” it’s a piece of information. We’ve also been very careful not to do product placement. A lot of people look at us and say, “You are a natural for product placement.” The challenge with that is to separate church and state. When we founded our networks we were very conscious of separating our content from our commercials and not blurring the line. People don’t tune in to have a host talk about a particular brand of dishwasher or any other product because it’s our opinion that the consumer should make his or her own decision about that. We should give them the information that leads them to a buying opportunity. To be overly simplistic, we produce content that really rings the cash register. We know that people watch, they become engaged and then they go buy. What technology is going to allow us to do over the coming years is to shrink that line, and people will be doing more on an interactive basis with set-top boxes, where they can click and get more information right from the screen. That’s going to happen in a big way. You can’t get out of the way of it and we just have to understand that interactivity is a huge part of all of our futures.

 

WS: A lot of TV executives feel linear channels may lose their relevance as people increasingly find whatever they want to watch online.

LOWE: Research shows that people are watching more television than ever. Obviously, viewing habits have changed and cable has had a very big impact on broadcast television, but even younger demos are watching a lot of television. We’re seeing proof of that on the Food Network. Now having said that, there is no question that viewing habits will change. We will always have a fragmented media society and we just have to be cognizant of that. But we think that the Internet and mobile platforms, if anything, are additive. It’s really up to us to figure out how to take these incredible platforms and use them to cross promote, help people to get to other areas that they are going to go to anyway, and use our content in new and different ways with shorter-form video clips, especially on mobile platforms.

 

I don’t think TV viewership will start to dwindle anytime soon. I really don’t. And one of the things we are seeing is a lot of smart reinvention of content. For a while broadcast television had decided it would not compete with cable. But if you look at ABC’s lineup of comedy shows, if you look at some of the smarter things CBS has done scheduling CSI, or NBC with Law & Order or with reality-based series, they air these shows on the broadcast network and then cascade them down to their other properties—on cable, online and on mobile. We are going to have TV viewing for a long time, but it’s going to be up to the content providers to figure out: does the viewing start here and cascade to the other platforms? And will there be separate content on these other platforms?

 

WS: What plans do you have for the Travel Channel?

LOWE: With the Travel Channel we see an enormous opportunity. It gives us another category beyond food and shelter. It’s a non-fiction category that we have longed for.  Last year was the Travel Channel’s most successful ratings year in its history. In addition, they lowered the median age of the channel by over five years.

 

We’ll begin to take the Travel Channel content, like we have our other cable channels—HGTV and Food Network primarily—and move it beyond just the TV dial into consumer branding and marketing areas. We do a lot of promotion around our brands and we think that can enhance the Travel Channel. We have been very successful at using the on-air promotion on all our channels and cross-promoting and building viewership on the others. We have our plate full but we are very excited about the future of the Travel Channel and, of course, it offers some international opportunities for us as well.

 

WS: Speaking of international, you have stepped up expansion lately. What has been the strategy?

LOWE: First and foremost, hiring Greg Moyer [as the president of Scripps Networks International] was just a bull’s eye for us. If you look at Greg’s vast experience, it’s hard not to give him his due for what he contributed to Discovery, and Discovery quite admirably has done an incredible job building up its international distribution. Greg is refocusing our international efforts [by switching from] a syndication model where we were selling quite a bit of our programming to more of a branded-channel strategy. Greg is doing a fantastic job and we have been very encouraged by our first launches. The Food Network U.K. is a great success early on. We’ve also announced a deal with NDTV and the Good Times channel in India and we’re very excited about it.

 

As I mentioned earlier, if you look at our library, it’s just rich with content we think can either be exported or merged with content on the ground in other countries. We will continue with some of our syndication, you’ll be seeing that at MIPTV, but it will be more hit-show driven as opposed to syndicating the entire library. We’ll be making better use of the library for our branded channels.

 

We believe we have an opportunity to make all our brands, which are associated in the categories of home, food and travel, stand-alone channels anywhere in the world. It will primarily be through partnerships because we feel partnerships work best with folks on the ground that know the country, know the culture. And lastly, we are going to be very patient. This is a business model that we’ve invested a lot in over time. We know it can’t happen overnight and so we are willing to adequately fund it, put capital in, have a great management team led by Greg and then kind of sit back and watch it grow. The one thing that having HGTV has taught me over the years is that even though we live in [a fast-paced world], to grow a rose takes some time and yet you end up with a thing of beauty at some point. We think long term our opportunity for international growth is just tremendous, but we’ll have to be a little patient.