Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) was an American
mass media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets.
Broadcast media transmit informatio ...
company, which was formed on July 1, 2008, and acquired by and merged into
Discovery Communications on March 6, 2018. It was formed in 2008, through the
spin-off
Spin-off may refer to:
*Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work
*Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity
* Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gove ...
of the
E. W. Scripps Company's
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
networks and online assets.
Discovery Communications completed its acquisition of SNI after receiving approval from the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...
and
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
on March 6, 2018. It was the owner of several major
factual television cable channels, including
Food Network
Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...
,
HGTV
HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, ...
and
Travel Channel
Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United ...
, and operated or held stakes in localized international versions of these brands. SNI also owned Polish broadcaster
TVN and half of the British channel group
UKTV.
SNI was headquartered in
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state ...
. The company had additional office locations in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
;
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...
;
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
;
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
;
Chevy Chase, Maryland;
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...
;
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
;
Nashville;
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state lin ...
; and offices in
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...
(Brazil),
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
(UK) and
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
.
On July 31, 2017,
Discovery Communications announced its intent to acquire SNI. After receiving approval from the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...
and
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
, the sale was completed on March 6, 2018, after which the company changed its name to Discovery, Inc.
History
In 1994, Scripps acquired the
Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state ...
-based Cinetel Productions to serve as a production base for a new home lifestyle-oriented cable network, which would eventually launch in December as
HGTV
HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, ...
. Scripps later acquired a stake in the
Food Network
Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...
, and launched a spin-off of HGTV known as DIY Network (now
Magnolia Network
Magnolia Network is an American basic cable network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and Chip and Joanna Gaines. It broadcasts personality-based lifestyle programs related to topics such as home construction, renovation, and cuisine.
The chan ...
).
On July 1, 2008, Scripps spun out its cable networks and online properties as a new, publicly traded company known as Scripps Networks Interactive. The split was performed to reduce the financial burden of Scripps' broadcast television and print assets on its profitable cable network properties.
The company acquired a majority interest in the
Travel Channel
Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United ...
from Cox Communications for a reported $975 million in late 2009, and the following year rebranded Fine Living Network as
Cooking Channel
Cooking Channel is an American basic cable channel owned by Food Network, a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (69%) and Nexstar Media Group (31%). The channel is a spin-off of Food Network, broadcas ...
.
In April 2011, the company announced the sale of Shopzilla to
Symphony Technology Group for $165 million. From within its Travel Channel unit, Scripps also invested in Oyster.com, a hotel research and booking site.
In 2011,
Virgin Media
Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint ven ...
agreed to sell its 50% stake in
UKTV to Scripps Networks Interactive for $495 million (£339 million).
Completion of the transaction was contingent on regulatory approvals in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and
Jersey
Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...
, which was received on October 3, 2011.
On March 22, 2012, Scripps Networks Interactive announced that it had agreed to pay £65m (US$102.7m) to acquire
Travel Channel International Limited (TCI), the UK-based broadcaster that ran travel-themed television channels under the Travel Channel brand across the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific markets, but had no connection with the
American television channel of the same name until that time. The deal was completed on May 1, 2012, following regulatory approval. The channels ran by TCI were rebranded after the American channel since then.
In May 2013, Scripps Networks Interactive announced that it would open a Brazilian headquarters, in
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...
,
and had appointed the former vice-president of strategy of
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
as managing director, broadcasting its channels to the entire
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
region.
On June 5, 2013, the company launched ulive, a digital-only lifestyle video brand that combined video content from the company's media brands with third-party videos and original series. Later rebranded as Lifestyle Studios, his video portal and distribution network expanded on the company's food, home and travel verticals, adding coverage for topics including parenting and wellness.
By way of its acquisition of Polish company N-Vision, Scripps Networks Interactive gained a 52.7% controlling interest in Polish broadcaster
TVN in March 2015 for $615.3 million (€584 million) from
ITI Group and French media giant
Vivendi. The company bought out TVN's remaining owners, ITI Group and
Canal+ Group in July 2015.
On May 3, 2017, Scripps acquired millennial-targeted food website Spoon University.
Acquisition by Discovery
On July 31, 2017,
Discovery Communications announced that it would acquire Scripps Networks Interactive for $14.6 billion in a cash and stock deal. Discovery will establish an operational hub in Knoxville, but the company also announced plans to relocate its worldwide headquarters from
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, in practice it is an edge cit ...
to New York City in 2019.
On February 6, 2018, the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
approved the deal. Since
Liberty Global
Liberty Global plc is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Plc, Liberty Global B.V. and Liberty Global, Inc., with t ...
, which operates pay television services in Poland under the
UPC Polska brand, is a major shareholder in Discovery Communications, the EU required that Discovery ensure the continued availability of
TVN24 and
TVN24 BiS to third-party television providers.
The purchase was approved by the
U.S. Department of Justice on February 27, 2018, and was completed on March 6, 2018; at that time, the company also changed its name to Discovery, Inc.
SNI's chief programmer Kathleen Finch was retained as Discovery's Chief Lifestyle Brands Officer, overseeing the former SNI channels, as well as Discovery lifestyle networks such as
TLC.
In turn, Discovery, Inc. merged with
WarnerMedia in April 2022 to form
Warner Bros. Discovery; Finch was subsequently promoted to head of U.S. Networks, overseeing all non-premium cable networks run by Warner Bros. Discovery (besides
Magnolia Network
Magnolia Network is an American basic cable network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and Chip and Joanna Gaines. It broadcasts personality-based lifestyle programs related to topics such as home construction, renovation, and cuisine.
The chan ...
, which reports to
HBO head Casey Bloys).
Assets
United States
*
Cooking Channel
Cooking Channel is an American basic cable channel owned by Food Network, a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (69%) and Nexstar Media Group (31%). The channel is a spin-off of Food Network, broadcas ...
(70% with
Tribune Media)
*
DIY Network
*
Food Network
Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...
(70% with
Tribune Media)
*
Great American Country
*
HGTV
HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, ...
*
Travel Channel
Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United ...
International
*
Asian Food Channel
*
Fine Living (European TV channel)
**
Fine Living (Italian TV channel)
Fine Living was an Italian television channel, owned and operated by Discovery Inc., an American media company. It started airing on Italian terrestrial television on March 26, 2014 replacing Coming Soon Television.
It was broadcast in Italian ...
*
TVN Group
*
UKTV
References
{{authority control
Mass media companies established in 2008
Mass media companies disestablished in 2018
Companies based in Knoxville, Tennessee
Discovery, Inc.
Former E. W. Scripps Company subsidiaries
Defunct mass media companies of the United States
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
2018 mergers and acquisitions
Predecessors of Warner Bros. Discovery