Former Food Network president Courtney White has teamed with media company Wheelhouse to create a new company focused on food, home and lifestyle content.

The Butternut joint venture will create original content for all platforms, said the company. As Butternut president, White will collaborate with Wheelhouse and its various divisions, including Wheelhouse Entertainment, marketing arm Wheelhouse Labs, digital division Wheelhouse DNA, and investment arm Wheelhouse 360. Wheelhouse was founded in 2017 by Brent Montgomery and Jimmy Kimmel.

Prior to Butternut, White served as president of Food Network, as well as general manager of HGTV and Food Network. 

Also: Wonder Women of New York 2022: Courtney White

“The single, common element across all successful lifestyle content is passion – talent must project it, creators must harness it, audiences must feel it,” said White in a statement. “Personal passion for the lifestyle genre has been the essential factor in my own career trajectory and will be a fundamental tenet for Butternut as we work to create signature content born out of our vast enthusiasm for, and as, makers. Partnering with Brent and the Wheelhouse team supercharges our mission; Brent’s signature energy and infectious excitement for bold innovation in media and beyond will empower Butternut to fully realize its ambitions to deliver the genre’s very best to audiences and partners.”

Added Wheelhouse CEO Montgomery: “It’s thrilling to spot industry leaders at the top of their game and partner up to support them further as visionaries and entrepreneurs. There are very few in our business who know the lifestyle arena as well as Courtney, and who are trusted more by talent. We see Butternut not only as our lifestyle stronghold in content, but in other potential businesses, from culinary to consumer products. This is an inspiring collaboration and we’re looking forward to rolling up our sleeves to support Courtney and her creative and business goals.” ■ 

Cooking is Courtney White’s favorite at-home pastime. That’s not surprising, since at work she’s heating up the fortunes of Food Network.

As president of the Discovery Inc.-owned network, White last year led Food to a second-place finish among the most-watched cable networks in total day among women 18-49, its target demographic, per Nielsen. She accomplished the feat by stirring up a mix of shows such as Chopped and Kids Baking Championship, and  expert cuisine ideas from well-known chefs and celebrities like Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, Valerie Bertinelli and Trisha Yearwood. 

White’s interest in the entertainment industry began when she was 9 years old, growing up in Albany, New York, and her family invested in a video camera. “My parents bought it to record recitals and school plays and then kept it in what to me was a deliciously untouchable golden case,” she said. “One day, I asked them if I could start making movies, and to my surprise they said yes. So I started making movies with the local neighborhood kids.”

Early Movie Ambitions

She grew up to attend New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, hoping to become a film producer. “The first person in the media industry who really stood out to me was Steven Spielberg, even though I had never met him,” she said. “He was just a phenomenon and he was the first filmmaker that I ever saw on the cover of Newsweek or whatever magazine was on my parents’ coffee table.” 

Despite her love for movies, her first internship at NYU was on the small screen with PBS’s The Martha Stewart Show. It was there where she began to cultivate an affinity for the TV industry, and for cooking. “Once I interned there and other TV places in college, I really decided TV was for me,” she said. “I loved the storytelling of it as well as the pace and volume of it.” 

White graduated NYU in 1997, just as the cable industry was beginning to blossom. She would work at HBO under the tutelage of legendary producer Sheila Nevins, as well as for Working Dog Productions, before taking a programming development job at HGTV in 2005. “I had actually never watched a frame of HGTV before the job posting came so I crammed HGTV [content], and that’s how I got into lifestyle TV,” she said.

At the time, HGTV was looking to build a brand beyond informational television by cultivating new talent. White said she was in the midst of the network’s expansion. “The Property Brothers [Jonathan and Drew Scott] were probably the first ones that our team identified and put on the air who really helped change the course of that network, and opened the doors for others like Chip and Joanna Gaines,” she said.
“It just became a real personality-based network.”

After developing iconic shows including Beachfront Bargain Hunt and Hawaii Life for HGTV, White became VP of program development and production for that network, along with DIY Network and GAC. She took her talents to Travel Channel in 2015 as senior VP of programming, then became executive VP and general manager of HGTV and Food Network in 2017. A year later she was named Food Network president.

White said Scripps Networks Interactive, which owned HGTV, Food, Travel, DIY and GAC before Discovery’s purchase in 2018, was a nurturing place for women executives.

“I feel very fortunate to have been in that particular environment because everywhere I looked there were other women who were role models,” she said, pointing to such executives as current Discovery Inc. chief lifestyle brands officer Kathleen Finch and former Food Network president Brooke Johnson.

Multifaceted Leadership

Finch said White has an uncanny ability to step into multiple roles and be successful from both a business perspective and as a leader. “Courtney White possesses an energy, creative instinct and passion for developing outstanding content that would make her an invaluable executive anywhere and our portfolio of brands have been fortunate to have Courtney spearheading so many of the consumer and commercial successes our viewers devour, first at HGTV, then at Travel Channel and ultimately leading Food Network,” she said.

Looking ahead, White said she’s primed for the challenge of maintaining and continuing to build Food Network’s brand while fending off competitors in the genre. ■

Discovery, Inc. has named Courtney White to head up Food Network, the company said Monday.

As president of Food Network, White will oversee the company’s food brands. Former president of HGTV and Food Network Allison Page will now concentrate on HGTV going forward, according to Discovery. Page will also continue to work closely with former Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines as they work toward launching their own TV network in tandem with Discovery.

White, formerly executive vice president and general manger of HGTV and Food Network, will relocate to New York from Knoxville, Tenn. She became senior vice president of programming for Travel Channel in late 2015 after serving as vice president of program development and production for HGTV, DIY Network and Great American Country.

“Courtney has been instrumental to the growth of both Food Network and HGTV, turning talented home experts and everyday chefs into treasured, household names,” said Kathleen Finch, chief lifestyle brands officer for Discovery, to whom White will report. “With her strategic eye on Food Network and Allison’s on HGTV, we’ll ensure these iconic brands continue to delight our passionate fans and maximize their unique value to our advertising and affiliate partners.”

Lynn Sadofsky, vice president of production and development at National Geographic, has joined Scripps Networks Interactive in a similar post.

At Scripps Sadofsky will be vice president of programming and development for Food Network, Cooking Channel and Travel Channel, reporting to SVP Courtney White. She will be based in New York.

Her past programming credits include Wicked Tuna, Brain Games, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Food Detectives and Saturday Night Live.

“As a respected and skilled leader in the industry, Lynn’s impressive career has spanned both the production and network side of the business,” White said of the new hire. “I had the privilege of working alongside Lynn a few years ago and I was invigorated every day by her dedicated work ethic, attention to creative detail, strong management of talent and team, and her collaborative nature.”

Travel Channel has ordered a 10-episode season of Booze Traveler: Best Bars, in which host Jack Maxwell seeks out the best bars and drinks in the United States for various occasions. His globe-trotting hour-long series Booze Traveler, meanwhile, returns for its 16-episode third season on Monday, Dec. 12, at 10 p.m.

Best Bars (half-hour episodes) goes into production soon and is set to debut in Spring 2017, the Scripps Networks outlet said. “Jack’s curiosity and adventurous spirit is infectious – fans love following him around the world,” Courtney White, senior vice president, programming, Travel Channel said in a release. “The new series is a great opportunity for our viewers to rediscover well-known American cities by getting an inside look at the best neighborhood bars.”

Travel Channel has ordered up a third season of Jack Maxwell's Booze Traveler, greenlighting 16 more one-hour episodes of the globe-trotting, alcohol-fueled exercise in cultural awareness. The Scripps Networks Interactive outlet said the show's second season has seen a 55% gain in ratings among adults ages 25-54 versus the average of the first season's premieres. It also draws a median household income level 15% higher than the U.S. median average while ranking among the top five most-watched shows on the network, Travel Channel said. Maxwell's show has visited such locales as Argentina, Finland, Guatemala, Hawaii, Sicily, Tanzania and Texas, where he meets with the locals and shares their local favorite drinks.

“When Jack sits down with a stranger and a couple of drinks, the whole world opens up,” Courtney White, the newly named senior vice president, programming and production, at Travel Channel said in a release. “As we’ve seen from the overwhelmingly positive response to our hit series like Bizarre Foods and Expedition Unknown, Travel Channel viewers love discovering a location through its people and stories. It’s no surprise that with more than 1.8 million viewers each week, Booze Traveler would find similar success.”

Booze Traveler is produced by Karga Seven Pictures in association with White Reindeer Productions.