Tuned In to Tennessee
Published Aug 26, 2008
Tennessee is home to several popular television channels, including Knoxville-based Scripps Networks’ HGTV, Food Network and Great American Country, whose studios are in downtown Nashville.
Tennessee is a channel-surfer’s paradise, thanks to several popular Volunteer State-based networks available to millions of households via broadcast, cable and satellite.
When the time came for Knoxville-based Scripps Networks to grow, President John Lansing says the company did its due diligence and decided East Tennessee was still the place to be. Scripps Networks has announced a $30 million expansion of its West Knoxville headquarters, which should be completed by 2010. “You don’t have to be in New York or Los Angeles,” Lansing says.
With about 900 Knoxville employees, Scripps Networks is the dominant television company in the home, food and lifestyle categories with brand names that include HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living and Great American Country, which has its base in Nashville.
Lansing credits the organization’s success to the region’s workforce, which he calls “entrepreneurial, highly educated, energized and creative.” Luring employees from outside the area isn’t a problem, either.
“We have found that access to the education system and the natural beauty of East Tennessee all work in our favor. It’s a competitive advantage,” he says.
While not born in Tennessee, RFD-TV took off when the company moved from Dallas to Nashville, acknowledges RFD-TV President Patrick Gottsch, who founded the company in 2000.
As its name implies, RFD-TV targets a rural market, with programming that ranges from farming to livestock, country cooking to cowboys, horses to tractor pulls, quilting to country music. “I’ve read every e-mail that’s ever come into RFD-TV. … One thing that came through loud and clear was how passionate people were about missing The Nashville Network,” Gottsch says of the cable mainstay whose corporate parent changed its programming format and its name.
Thus, RFD-TV reruns many of the old TNN favorites and has revived popular shows such as “Crook & Chase” and “The Ralph Emery Show.”
RFD-TV employs about 50 people, a number Gottsch expects to rise to 150 by the end of 2008. The company also boasts a magazine and a theater in Branson, Mo., and plans to launch satellite-radio and international television programming.
Also in Knoxville is Jewelry Television, a jewelry and gemstones shopping network with about $500 million in revenues in 2007. Founded in 1993 in Greeneville, Tenn., as the America’s Collectibles Network, the company honed its product offerings down to just jewelry after about a decade. Jewelry TV employs 2,000 people in its Knoxville headquarters and another 100 around the world “sourcing” gemstones and jewelry, says Randy Sadler, vice president of marketing. “One of the great things about global sourcing is that it allows us to provide fantastic prices for our customers and cut out a lot of steps.” Many of Jewelry TV’s workers staff a sprawling warehousing and shipping operation, as well as a 300-seat call center that never closes.
Knoxville is “a fantastic place to build a workforce,” Sadler says. “There is a large base of people with a good skill set, a willingness to work hard and a lot of integrity.”
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Todd Bennett
Current Weather Conditions In Nashville, TN (37243)
Cloudy, and 56 ° F. For more details?
Click here...
