A Meal Ticket on Cable

N E W  Y O R K, Jan. 19, 2001 -- When the Food Network started out in 1993, cooking shows weren't considered hot TV fare, and chefs weren'tcelebrities. Studious cooks watched Julia Child and the GallopingGourmet truss chickens, but cooking as entertainment had not yetarrived.

Now, bad-boy chef Emeril Lagasse is practically everywhere,along with Mario Batali, Ming Tsai, Iron Chef and the variousother cultural creations birthed by Food Network, which has gonefar beyond its humble beginnings to become a scrappy success story.

Along the way, Food Network also became a meal ticket for itsmajority owner, the venerable newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps Co.

With revenues jumping at about 60 percent a year, Food Network andits sister cable channels are now the company's main growth engine.

Riding a Sociological Wave

All this would have been hard to predict when Food Networkstarted out. For one thing, America's growing obsession withcooking and fine dining has certainly helped raise Food Network'sprofile — even if it has stumped some of its own executives.

"We're riding a kind of sociological wave that we don't reallyunderstand," acknowledged network president Judy Girard.

Food Network remains smaller than other niche cable outlets likeDiscovery and far behind the major networks. But its ability tobuild its audience beyond the souffle-and-truffles set hasadvertisers and industry analysts paying close attention.

"When cable was first emerging, this was the kind of thing welaughed at," said Bob Thompson, professor of media and popularculture at Syracuse University. "But the Food Network has beenmore successful than anyone else at creating a varied lineupcentered around a single topic."

Newest Creations Driven by Star Chefs

While the Food Network may indeed be riding a foodie wave, it'salso doing plenty on its own to grow. As a young company entering afield with no competitors, it has had a free hand to experimentwith various formats to see what works and what doesn't. Last week, the network unveiled its two latest shows, bothdriven by star chefs.

One follows Wolfgang Puck, a well-connected Californiarestaurateur, as he cooks and mingles with celebrities. The other,Mario Eats Italy, brings viewers on a kind of gonzo culinaryroad trip with Batali and a sidekick.

It's the latest scheduling tweak by programming chief EileenOpatut, who came on board in 1997 after senior posts at the BBC'sU.S. operation and at National Geographic, where she pioneered theExplorer show.

"None of us have the hubris to think that we know theanswers," said Opatut, who has launched 30 series and 125 specialsduring her tenure at Food Network. Like a good chef, she said,"we're always experimenting."

In some cases, they strike gold. Who could have guessed that acampy Japanese cooking contest show called Iron Chef wouldamass a cult following, or that two hefty British ladies who toolaround on an old motorcycle would wow viewers with lardsome recipesand posh accents?

"You keep pushing the envelope outward until you find somethingthat doesn't work," says Ed Spray, president of Scripps Networks.

A Place for Mojitos and Tostones

This freewheeling approach has netted any number of oddballformats, including one in which a host knocks on a family's doorand has a chef come in to cook a gourmet dinner with whatever islying around in the refrigerator. By the same token, the networkalso has no problem pulling shows that bomb, such as the first twoefforts to get Lagasse on the air.

Lagasse's brash style and curious love of pork fat may havealienated some viewers, but his following remains loyal. At arecent New York taping of Emeril Live, one of the network's topshows, Ed Cichone drank in the wild atmosphere as the chef whippedup Cuban specialties like mojitos and tostones.

A computer consultant by day, Cichone says he uses the FoodNetwork Web site for nearly all his recipes, and once even staged amock cooking contest at home a la Iron Chef.

As Scripps continues to tinker with Food Network and HGTV, ahome and gardening channel, it's also hoping to whip up othersuccessful single-topic channels. Its home improvement channel DIY(Do It Yourself) started up about a year ago, and a lifestylechannel Fine Living is due to launch in the second half of thisyear.

But analysts say the kind of growth Food Network is seeing overthe past two years may be hard to duplicate. Since 1998 the numberof homes where Food Network can be see has nearly doubled to 54million, and prime time viewership has more than doubled to295,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Squeezing Profits From Nation’s Food Fascination

Their timing couldn't be better. Investors now place a hugepremium on specialty cable channels, as seen by the rich $2.3billion that Viacom Inc. agreed to pay last fall for BET, a majorminority broadcaster.

The Food Network turned a tiny profit in 1999, a full year aheadof schedule, on revenue of $66.6 million.

But there's been some rough going along the way. It's on itsfourth president since founder Reese Schonfeld left in late 1995,and ownership changed hands several times until Scripps took acontrolling interest in 1997.

With ownership and management turmoil abated now, Food Networkis concentrating on cooking up more hits and expanding its namerecognition. A street-level studio is planned to open next year inManhattan's swank Chelsea Market, and a cooking school and kitchenproducts are also in the works.

It's unclear how much more can be squeezed out of the nation'sgrowing food fascination, but Opatut, the programming chief, saysshows about cooking and eating are more than a passing fad. "Food is a vocabulary that people are starting to share,"Opatut said. "We're tapping a need in our culture for somethingthat centers them. There's a greater need for people to connect toeach other, and that link is often food."