New Cable Channel to Offer Upscale TV for the Well-Off

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. —  Ah, the good life!

What is it? Well, paradise comes in many forms.

A 24-hour cable channel launching next year called Fine Living promises to capture its rich, rare and relaxed essence. In other words, upscale TV.

Scripps Networks, a growing purveyor of lifestyles programming including Home & Garden Television and the Food Network, has dreamed up Fine Living.

What exactly will be on the new channel hasn’t been decided--more focus groups are scheduled across the country next month. Scripps is somewhere between an idea and a product at this point.

But if it were a magazine, Fine Living probably would be closer to Town & Country than HGTV-like Good Housekeeping. Magazines, in fact, were part of the inspiration--publications like the Robb Report, Wine Spectator and Cigar Aficionado.

“We did some research to tell us if we are crazy or on the mark in terms of concept,” said Susan Packard, president of Scripps’ New Ventures division, adding that Scripps liked the answer.

“Never has there been a moment in history where we have seen so much disposable income and yet so little disposable time . . . to enjoy the fruits of our labor,” Packard said.

Fine Living will be aimed at satisfying “the needs of these very time-starved people by providing the best of the best in a number of categories.”

The channel will key on five main topics: dining (fine cuisine and spirits), personal transportation (luxury cars, yachts and jets), homes (mansions, ski chalets, antiques), travel (exotic getaways, five-star hotels) and personal finance (estate planning, charitable giving).

“What you are trying to do is grab a demographic that is high-end,” said analyst Derek Baine at Paul Kagan Associates. “It is just a question of how big is that market and how much competition are they going to have from ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ and some of those programs on E!”

Baine guesses Fine Living will find an audience, and could even leverage its cachet if it manages a joint venture later with some of these upscale magazines it emulates.

Scripps Networks is drawing from the lessons learned with HGTV, which tapped the do-it-yourself audience of home remodelers, crafters and hobbyists so effectively when it launched in late 1994. Today, HGTV reaches 62 million homes and gets 14 million hits a month on its Web site.

Ken Lowe, who founded HGTV and is now president and chief operating officer of parent company E.W. Scripps, said Fine Living is a logical next step.

He compares it to Home Depot’s expansion into Expo Design Centers, home improvement stores in which stoves are commercial-grade and lighting fixtures can cost thousands.

“It is a smaller audience, but it is an audience that is growing out of the basic Depot story,” Lowe said.

Similarly, he said, Fine Living is “just an extension both economically and taste-wise of the folks who are maybe Home & Garden or Food viewers . . . and certainly those folks who are already there.”

Scripps will be targeting households in the $75,000-and-up income brackets. Programming will focus on “professional men and women who are adventurous, active, focused on quality and service, and tech-savvy,” the network said.

Though a smaller audience, it could still represent tens of millions of potential viewers, the network said. And they could lure advertisers who are trying to reach them now primarily through print media.

“The future is about continuing to define passionate audience segments that have sizable advertising and commerce attached to them, and this is certainly one that we think has not been tapped,” Lowe said.