Selling Cooking to Non-Cooks ON THE FOOD NETWORK: LUST, WEIRDOS, SATURATED FAT
By Katrina Brooker

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Just two years ago the Food Network was a flop. Ratings were so low they were almost undetectable. During one ten-month stretch, there were three different owners and three different CEOs. One former employee recalls getting hired and laid off in the space of just three weeks because, she was told, the network couldn't afford her $15,000-a-year salary.

Then, in June 1996, Erica Gruen, a fast-talking, no-fuss New Yorker, took over as CEO. "People said I was making a big career mistake," she says. But to Gruen, fixing the Food Network was a no-brainer. Dump the has-been chefs, she declared. Out with the talking-head-behind-a-stove. Stop lecturing viewers--entertain them!

Gruen introduced offbeat programs like Ready-Set-Cook, a game show that pits celebrity chefs against each other, and Surreal Gourmet, which features bizarre recipes like dishwater-poached salmon. One giant new hit, Two Fat Ladies, follows two, well, fat British women who ride around on their motorcycle and sidecar, extolling the virtues of butter, mayonnaise, and clotted cream.

Whereas the Food Network used to bring in 62-year-old housewives in droves, it's now hot with urban hipsters who think cooking means toasting a bagel. "It's weird," concedes 23-year-old Eric Schmeltzer when asked why he watches the Food Network--let alone why he runs a Website devoted to the channel. The self-professed "macho man," who lives in Washington, D.C., claims he can barely boil water. "But it's the same reason I watch sports--[cooking] is something that I really can't do, so I like to watch someone who can."

Someone like Emeril. The network's new No. 1 show, Emeril Live, isn't about cooking. It's about lust. It's about viewers hungering for a swarthy, 37-year-old chef, Emeril Lagasse, who oozes sex appeal as he sweats over his boiling pots. Last fall, when the network set up a hot line to give away tickets for Emeril, 50,000 fans called within 22 minutes. "Emeril is starting to act like Elvis," sniffs Hartford Courant TV critic James Endrst.

Snobs be damned. This cooking Elvis has helped double the Food Network's subscriber base to 32 million viewers. With 75,000 prime-time viewers, ratings are twice what they were two years ago--still tiny, but the audience is a favorite with advertisers: high income, highly educated, ages 25 to 55. Last year the network signed on more than 80 new advertisers, including AT&T, American Express, and Toyota. After losing piles of cash since its 1993 launch, the Food Network is finally expected to break even next year on revenues of $40 million.

This is good news for the network's parent company, Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps. Analysts say the Food Network's success has helped boost Scripps' stock price by 40% during the past 12 months. Scripps CEO William Burleigh is pleased by the network's ratings--and smitten by Two Fat Ladies. "I'm hooked," he says, "on those crazy ladies on the motorcycles."

--Katrina Brooker