E.W. Scripps Co. ponied up $49.5 million Wednesday to acquire a 70 percent stake in television network Shop at Home.
Scripps -- media assets of which include 10 broadcast stations and cable networks Home & Garden Television, Food
Network, Do It Yourself and Fine Living -- is also floating Shop at Home a
$47.5 million loan to pay down existing debt.
The deal gives Scripps control of Shop at Home's television network, but not
its five broadcast stations.
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"Shop at Home Network provides Scripps with an efficient way to quickly gain
scale in a fast-growing industry that we believe is increasingly related to the
media businesses we currently operate," Scripps president and CEO Kenneth W. Lowe said in a prepared statement.
Potential crossover opportunities might include retailing HGTV and Food
consumer products on Shop at Home and bringing cable-network talent onto
the shopping channel to pitch their wares.
Shop at Home, available in about 42 million homes, has tallied $142 million
in sales for the first nine months of fiscal-year 2002. It's the fourth-largest
television home shopping channel.
