Channeling Food

The idea of a channel devoted solely to food and cooking had been bouncing around for almost two years before TVFN actually made its debut. During the 1980s, “narrowcasting”—developing programs and channels aimed at specific, definable audiences—was the buzzword in the cable world. The idea was not to reach everyone—as “broadcasters” tried to do—but to reach a small but significant group that would appeal to advertisers interested in niche marketing. When cable guru Trygve Myhren was named president of the Providence Journal Company in December 1990, he arrived with an agreement from the other members of the board stating that he could develop programming for the cable TV business, including the company’s cable subsidiary, Colony Communications. Myhren called together Colony’s leadership and asked for programming ideas. His plan was to launch channels that could be totally ad supported, would appeal to a recognizable niche audience, and could be programmed with relatively inexpensive shows. He believed the idea would come from a genre that had a robust magazine or publishing business but had not yet been featured on television. The most fertile niches would not only support a cable channel but also provide the platform for building brands that could be exploited through sales of related products and services. While they were considering the options, their solution walked in the door. Ken Levy, the director of external relations for Johnson & Wales University, in Providence, Rhode Island, had an idea: why not broadcast cooking shows using the chefs and students from the university’s renowned culinary school? Levy made the suggestion, in part, because the university was considering purchasing a large building in downtown Providence that had previously housed the local NBC affiliate. Since the building already had studios and equipment, it seemed to Levy and his associate, Richard Carrier, that some space could be dedicated to taping cooking shows, which could then be broadcast to the market surrounding Providence.

To help think through the concept, Levy and Carrier set up a meeting with Joe Langhan, one of the executives at Colony Communications. Acting on Myhren’s directive, Langhan was already considering new networks, and, after hearing the idea of televising cooking shows throughout the state, he began warming to the idea of a cooking network. He discussed the concept with others at Colony, including Jack Clifford, the head of the Providence Journal Company’s electronic-media empire. Clifford also liked the idea, but, upon reflection, he concluded that setting up a network with just cooking shows wasn’t enough. He believed the company should set up a channel showing other food-related programs as well as cooking shows. This could be done by acquiring the rights to existing cooking programs and also developing some new programs. Langhan, the Colony management team, Clifford, and his assistant, Andrew Thatcher, presented the idea to Myhren, who liked it as well—in part because Clifford and Langhan were so enthusiastic about it, and because initial research indicated that the food category enjoyed enormous book sales and magazine-advertising support. The problem was how to make the concept of a cooking channel a reality. No one at the Providence Journal Company, except Myhren, had any experience producing cable TV programming, and everyone already had a full-time job, so it was unlikely that a new network could be set up with the existing personnel. Myhren wanted to find a consultant and, after interviewing several candidates, chose Stephen Cunningham, previously a consultant to Time Warner’s cable systems subsidiary. Myhren was also convinced that, if the network were to succeed, they needed an entrepreneurial cable programming operator to get it off the ground. The right man for the job was Reese Schonfeld, cofounder of CNN with Ted Turner, who had met Myhren when Myhren was serving on the Turner Broadcasting board. Schonfeld came on board in late 1991.

Cunningham, Schonfeld, Clifford, and Langhan began work on a business plan for what was tentatively being called TVFN, the Television Food Network, named by Jack Clifford.³ This planning group conducted numerous interviews and examined several possible models for a cooking channel. The good news was that cooking shows—colloquially referred to as “dump and stir” programs—were relatively inexpensive to make and formulaic in their construction; many successful programs had already appeared on commercial broadcast networks, cable networks, and PBS. While this type of program was fine for daytime TV, the group believed it would not draw an audience during prime time. Eventually, the group agreed with Clifford that a primary focus on cooking, as initially proposed by Johnson & Wales, was too limiting. The focus needed to be expanded to include food more generally. The new channel would therefore feature cooking programs but also offer lifestyle shows to attract a broader audience. Meanwhile, research for the business plan confirmed that food was one of the largest consumer categories—estimated at $500 billion in annual sales, with an estimated $50 billion in annual advertising, marketing, and promotional expenditures. Based on these encouraging figures, it seemed likely that a food network, executed well, could generate a solid revenue stream.

The planning group assumed the new channel’s audience would be upper-middle-class women—stay-at-home moms who could watch daytime television as well as working women interested in evening entertainment. Although this would be a smaller potential audience than that of many other cable networks, the group believed the affluent, decidedly female demographics would appeal to potential advertisers.

Many problems were raised and solved during the planning process. The most pressing one was how to generate funds to launch the network. Start-up costs were estimated at $40 million for the first four years. After that, the planners believed, the network would become profitable. Since Johnson & Wales had broached the idea, they were offered the first opportunity to buy into the expanded food network concept for a portion of the $40 million. After deliberation, Johnson & Wales declined the offer: it was simply too much for the university to invest at a time when the school was rapidly expanding to new locations throughout the United States. Rather than seek other investors—and split the profits—Myhren convinced the Providence Journal board to cover the entire start-up investment.

Another serious difficulty was how to get cable operators to carry the proposed channel. At the time, many cable networks, such as ESPN, charged operators for the right to air their programs. This system worked well with the more popular networks—every operator wanted to host some channels, particularly in areas where operators competed. However, cable operators had limited bandwidth, and they could thus offer only a limited number of channels to their subscribers. With hundreds of channels available, operators could choose those they were interested in hosting, which meant that new channels often languished because they had limited access to subscribers. Moreover, a small potential audience meant that advertisers were less interested in buying time on a particular network. To surmount this obstacle, Myhren devised a plan by which operators would receive the Food Network programs at no cost for several years and would be given a small equity in the new endeavor. Consequently, adding TVFN to their offerings would cost operators little, and, if the network made a profit, the operators stood to gain financially. It was in the operators’ best interest to offer the new channel to as many of their subscribers as possible. With a large subscriber base, it would be easier for TVFN to acquire major advertisers, which was precisely what Myhren intended—to finance TVFN solely through advertising revenue.

Myhren headed the group seeking to interest cable operators in the new network. In short order, several cable operators, including Cincinnati-based Scripps Howard, Boston-based Continental Cablevision, Pennsylvania-headquartered Adelphia, and others bought into the concept and became part owners of the nascent network. Myhren again approached Johnson & Wales, this time with a scaled-down proposal--for $2 million—but again the university heads declined, believing the school should focus on its students rather than move into the TV business. Meanwhile, Reese Schonfeld approached the Tribune Company, of Chicago, and made a deal to give them a larger share of TVFN in exchange for using their broadcast “must carry” rights to gain additional cable carriage. Cable operators who agreed to carriage were given positions on the TVFN board, although, as the largest investor, the Providence Journal Company maintained control of the board.

Meanwhile, in 1992, Congress passed the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act, with a series of requirements for new cable operators and programmers. To avoid these new regulations, cable networks had to be operating full-time before September 23, 1993. So that TVFN could steer clear of these regulations, TVFN acquired the rights to cooking shows previously aired on broadcast and public television stations and began running them. Creaky old cooking shows such as James Beard’s I Love to Cook, The Dione Lucas Cooking Show, and Graham Kerr’s The Galloping Gourmet were regularly rebroadcast on TVFN. Viewers were also treated to a two-hour preview devised by Joe Langhan and produced by Barry Rosenthal that featured upcoming shows slated for November 1993. The network also broadcast a couple of cooking demonstrations, along with an invitation to write to TVFN for the recipes. As soon as the channel began broadcasting, Langhan started getting requests for recipes. Soon after TVFN went live on November 23, 1993, requests for recipes grew into the thousands. While the cost of responding to these requests soared, it also provided a new way of disseminating recipes and information about TVFN’s programs and provided TVFN with information on its viewers. Langhan argued successfully for the development of a Web site, unusual at the time and one of TVFN’s more successful innovations. Once the TVFN Web site was live, it quickly became one of the most important elements in the success of the new network, helping further a brand that could support sales of ancillary products and services.

TVFN needed to develop a number of new programs to fill broadcast time, but at the time the decision was made to launch the network, it had no broadcast studio. Rather than construct studios in Providence, Schonfeld believed that New York was the place to be. TVFN used existing studios until Schonfeld’s wife, Pat O’Gorman, took on the task of seeing to it that a new “studio, control room, editing rooms, and office space” were completed, in eighty-three days, in a New York skyscraper.⁴ Since there was no ready pool of food celebrities looking for work, new talent had to be located. Schonfeld stepped in and made some crucial decisions. Having been a newsman on CNN, he wanted a news show on food. Based on previous contact he’d had with Donna Hanover, a TV journalist, he wanted her to anchor the program. At the time, her husband, Rudy Giuliani, was running for mayor of New York, and Schonfeld thought this might also create interest in the new network. Hanover herself knew nothing about food—in fact, in the early days none of those in TVFN leadership positions did—but she was an experienced television news professional and could read a script as well as any of them. An actor and food and wine writer named David Rosengarten was chosen to be Hanover’s on-air partner. Rosengarten’s agent had sent Schonfeld a tape of a pilot for which Rosengarten had auditioned. After a brief interview, Schonfeld promptly hired the actor to serve as the program’s cohost. Rosengarten also proposed an idea for a program called Taste, which he would host, and Schonfeld agreed to give it a try.

Another live program on the new cable channel was Food Talk, hosted by Robin Leach, a celebrity-focused writer who had starred in a popular television show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Food Talk gave TVFN a late-night talk show, and Schonfeld thought that having celebrities on the show would attract a wider audience. Leach later hosted a weekend series called Gourmet Getaways showcasing vacation resorts around the world and their chefs.

Other programs on TVFN included Getting Healthy, anchored by sports broadcaster Gayle Gardner and Dr. Stephanie Beling; a baking program; one featuring restaurant reviews; and another showing how to feed a family on $99 a week, hosted by cookbook author Michele Urvater. These programs were bundled together and repeated four times every twenty-four hours, along with reruns of cooking shows previously broadcast on public television or by other cable networks.⁵

Even with these programs on its schedule, TVFN needed to locate more talent, so Langhan created the show Chef du Jour, featuring a different chef every week. This show uncovered the audience appeal of a number of talented chefs, including Sara Moulton, Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, and Tyler Florence—all of whom went on to have their own programs.

In addition to the shows taped in New York, other TVFN programs were recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, by Reid/Land Productions, a firm with which Schonfeld had previously done work. Schonfeld wanted a program entitled How to Boil Water, meant to be a simple introduction to cooking. He asked Allen Reid, a founder of Reid/Land Productions, to locate a host for this as well as other programs. Reid recommended two possibilities: Jasper White, a restaurateur in Boston, or Emeril Lagasse, former executive chef at Commander’s Palace, in New Orleans; several years earlier, he had opened his own New Orleans restaurant, Emeril’s, which Esquire had named Best New Restaurant of 1990. In 1993, Lagasse had published his first book, Emeril’s New New Orleans Cooking. Lagasse’s name had come up early in the planning for TVFN, when Ken Levy mentioned him as a Johnson & Wales graduate; cable distribution consultant Nory LeBrun recommended him also. Reid brought in a tape of Lagasse, who had appeared on a couple of broadcast television shows. Schonfeld watched the tape with his assistant, Robin Connelly. After the screening, Schonfeld asked Connelly what she thought. Her response was that Lagasse was a “hunk.” That decided it—Emeril would host the How to Boil Water program. Lagasse flew into Nashville regularly to tape six or seven programs a day. He was paid the handsome sum of $300 per episode. The programs were scripted, Lagasse was stiff, and the show was yanked after a year. TVFN executives gave him another program, Emeril and Friends. It was also scripted, and also failed.

But TVFN still desperately needed programming, and Lagasse was available. He was given another opportunity, but this time, rather than tying him to a script, network executives gave him more freedom. The Essence of Emeril, which debuted in 1995, was filmed in New York; Lagasse flew in on Sunday mornings, taped five shows, and stayed over on Mondays and Tuesdays to tape seven or eight more shows each day before heading back to New Orleans. It was in one late-night taping session that Emeril yelled out “Bam!” to keep the film crew awake. That expletive soon became Emeril’s signature. The Essence of Emeril quickly became the network’s most popular show, and, in 1996, Time magazine named it one of the ten best TV shows of that year.⁶ The show was nominated for two ACE awards, the cable equivalent of broadcasting’s Emmy. Meanwhile, the program’s ratings climbed ever higher. Network executives gave Lagasse another program, Emeril Live, which debuted in January 1997. This time Lagasse cooked in front of a live audience; this made a huge difference, and his popularity soared. Lagasse rose from television personality to superstar.

To fill the TVFN broadcasting day, executives at the network secured the rights to air reruns of a number of cooking shows, including those of the ever-popular Julia Child, who agreed, in April 1994, to be interviewed on TVFN, and she regularly appeared thereafter on various programs.⁷ In addition, Schonfeld acquired the rights to the blockbuster Japanese cooking show, The Iron Chef, which introduced competitive cooking as spectator sport to American TV audiences. Iron Chef was such a hit that it spawned an entire new genre of cooking-competition programs.

In the early years, the heads of TVFN were convinced their main audience was women eighteen and older interested in instructional cooking shows.⁸ This turned out to be the case during weekday afternoons and weekend mornings, when many women did watch these programs. For the evening shows, however, TVFN had to develop new lifestyle programs, and these soon dominated TVFN in prime time. The network’s programs eventually settled into this two-tiered approach: daytime programs consisting of instructional cooking shows and nighttime programming featuring entertainment, such as cooking competitions, lighthearted surveys of food history, reality shows, and cuisine-themed travel shows.

In 1995, TVFN’s name was changed to the Food Network. Although the network’s audience was growing steadily, it reached only about 18 million subscribers at the time. Thirty-six million dollars had been invested, and operating profitability, though close, had not yet been achieved.

The board of TVFN’s parent, Providence Journal, was well aware that an investment of two dollars per cable subscriber, in an era when such cable operators sold subscribers for seven to ten dollars in private transactions, indicated that they had a winner on their hands. But the board had bigger issues to deal with. Shareholders of this private company were in disagreement as to its future, with the heirs of some founders demanding liquidity and others wanting to reinvest in their growing enterprise. Providence Journal had begun with a newspaper 180 years earlier, but, by the 1990s, it had grown into a large, diversified media company with broadcast TV, cable TV, cable programming, magazines, newspapers, and early Internet ventures. As such, it was keenly aware of the fate of some other newspaper dynasties, where disagreement among heirs had eventually resulted in significant depreciation in the value of the corporation.

Consequently, the board felt compelled to dismantle the company. The first step was the sale of the cable operating properties to Continental Cable, of Boston. The second step was taking the remaining properties, including the Food Network, public on the New York Stock Exchange. The final step was to accept an offer from the A . H. Belo Corporation, in Dallas, for all those businesses. In order to complete this sale, Providence Journal was required to buy back shares of minority shareholders in the Food Network. One of those who sold its shares was E. W. Scripps Company.

In an unusual move, the following year Scripps acquired a 56-percent controlling interest from Belo in return for $75 million in cash and the rights to television station KENS and radio station KENS-AM, broadcast outlets in San Antonio, Texas. The package was worth an estimated $140 million. Many observers, including those from Providence Journal, were surprised that Belo had relinquished the Food Network at such a low price.

Scripps, which also owned the home and garden cable network (HGTV ), focused on shifting programming away from instructional television and more toward lifestyle shows. This approach worked: by 2001, the network was reaching 75 million households, with some of the most affluent TV viewers in America. By 2007, the Food Network was being watched in 90 million homes—virtually every American home that had a cable television or satellite TV hookup.

Entertaining Effects

Julia Child wanted her viewers to cook and to cook well, but the Food Network has taken its on-air fare down a different path. As culinary historian Pauline Adema has argued, the Food Network shifted from an audience comprised of “people who like to cook to people who love to eat”⁹ to one consisting of voyeurs who increasingly liked simply to watch acts of consumerism and consumption. In the process, the Food Network spawned such celebrities as Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, Sara Moulton, Ming Tsai, and Rachael Ray, who have become some of America’s most influential culinary luminaries. While TVFN’s initial audience was primarily women, in time more men began watching the network. By 2007, almost half its viewers were male. In part this can be attributed to male food celebrities such as Lagasse, Flay, and Kaga Takeshi, who made it culturally appropriate for men to take an interest in cooking—traditionally a woman’s domain.

While the Food Network found its niche in entertainment—not education—it actually taught Americans about food in a way traditional cooking shows never imagined. It brought glamour to the culinary profession and convinced thousands of Americans it was a valid and worthwhile career path. Of course, many young students attending culinary school today dream of becoming tomorrow’s television chefs.

On the other hand, the Food Network’s programs are watched by millions of people who have no intention of cooking dinner in their own kitchens, let alone signing up for culinary school. These viewers wish to become more knowledgeable about food so they can order properly in a restaurant or hold their own in culinary conversations with their peers. In this way, the Food Network’s programs also give viewers a type of “cultural capital” that allows them to discuss the latest trends, personalities, and events in the food world.¹⁰ With its influence now pervasive throughout America, the Food Network has gone far beyond the realm of public-TV daytime cooking shows. It has empowered its viewers “to participate in consumerism by expanding their familiarity with food traditions emblematic of elite culture.”¹¹

The Food Network has changed the nation’s food scene through entertainment. It has also spawned hundreds of other food and cooking shows on cable and broadcast networks, and its culinary competitions have converted food into a spectator sport. The Food Network’s success demonstrated that food had become a central feature in the media and American life.

Postscript

Trygve Myhren is now president of Denver-based Myhren Media, Inc., a private investment firm, and he is also deeply engaged in pro bono work. Reese Schonfeld is retired and lives in New York. Jack Clifford has retired and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ken Levy is still the director of external relations for Johnson & Wales University. Joe Langhan helped set up the Wine Network and other cable channels and serves as a consultant to them. After fifteen years of successful programming, Emeril Lagasse, in 2007, left the Food Network and is currently starring in the new series Emeril Green, on Discovery Networks International.