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By David Keim, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.
Jun. 22--A fast-growing Knoxville company has scooped up assets of the struggling Shop At Home television network in Nashville and plans to keep it going as a new, smaller enterprise.
Jewelry Television, which has more than 2,000 employees in West Knoxville and posted $390 million in sales last year, will pay $17 million to the E.W. Scripps Co. for Shop At Home's building and real estate, satellite uplink facilities, information technology systems, call center, Web site and production studios.
Jewelry Television also plans to take over Shop At Home agreements with broadcast television stations, cable and satellite operators.
The changeover will take effect today.
"We have made job offers to 140 Shop At Home employees," Jewelry Television spokeswoman Kelly Fletcher said when the deal was announced just after market close Wednesday.
The network will continue to operate in Nashville as a separate company, Shop At Home Network LLC, in which Jewelry Television will have a controlling interest.
Jewelry Television said it expects to add a modest number of jobs in Knoxville in light of the acquisition.
There were 660 full-time employees at Shop At Home in May, when Cincinnati-based Scripps announced plans to shut down the network effective June 22.
Employees retained by Jewelry Television still will be eligible for severance packages and career transition services from Scripps, which is based in Cincinnati and owns dozens of media outlets including the News Sentinel.
Shop At Home was founded in Newport in 1986 to sell satellite equipment to satellite TV viewers. The operation was moved in 1992 to Knoxville and reported sales of $100.5 million when it moved to Nashville in 1998.
Scripps acquired Shop At Home in two transactions with a total value of about $285 million, acquiring controlling interest in October 2002 and buying the remaining interest in April 2004 along with five Shop At Home-affiliated broadcast television stations.
Shop At Home was not profitable when Scripps bought it, but Scripps hoped the channel would provide a shopping outlet for products related to Scripps' cable networks Home & Garden Television (HGTV), Food Network, Do It Yourself Network and Fine Living.
Shop At Home incurred $84 million in losses over the past four years, and Scripps expected a second-quarter after-tax loss of up to $60 million, although the company on Wednesday revised the estimated after-tax charge downward, to between $35 million and $45 million.
Former Shop At Home executive Tim Engle has been named president of the new Shop At Home company.
Engle was formerly president and COO of Shop at Home and left the network in 2001. He most recently was CEO of Beach Renovations Inc., which bought and renovated beachfront property, largely along the Gulf Coast.
The transaction with Jewelry Television does not include five Shop At Home-affiliated broadcast television stations owned and operated by Scripps in San Francisco, Boston, Cleveland, Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Bridgeport, Conn.
Scripps is seeking a buyer for the stations, which will air a combination of Shop At Home and Jewelry Television programming until they are sold.
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