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RSSThe Knoxville News-Sentinel
By David Keim, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.
Jun. 21--Jewelry Television is paying $17 million to the E.W. Scripps Co. to acquire assets of Scripps' Shop At Home television network and plans to continue operating the network on a smaller scale.
The deal is expected to close at midnight Thursday.
Knoxville-based Jewelry Television will obtain fixed assets including Nashville-based 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.
"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 today.
The network will continue to operate in Nashville as a separate company, Shop At Home Network LLC, in which Jewelry Television has a controlling interest.
Jewelry Television stated that it expects to add an unspecified 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.
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.
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