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Home improvement is in — and cooking shows are out.
That’s the news from Scripps Networks Interactive, where its Food Network shed 17 percent of its audience during the 12 months through April 30.
The average primetime show on the cable channel, which features such series as “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” slipped to 1.06 million.
At Scripps’ home-focused channel, HGTV, meanwhile, the number of eyeballs tuning in during primetime grew by 10 percent, to about 1.24 million.
America seems to like HGTV’s handy hunks, like those on “Cousins on Call,” hosted by Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri.
“HGTV’s 10.9 percent [revenue] growth was the best [in 10 quarters],” wrote UBS media analyst, John Janedis in an investor note yesterday.
The company’s cable network unit, Lifestyle Media, grew advertising revenue by 11 percent. Peers grew much less. Time Warner’s cable networks ad revenue rose by 1 percent and Viacom’s rose by 2 percent.
The Street was less impressed with Scripps’ performance on the affiliate revenue side. It reported an 8.5 percent increase in fees from distributors to $180.5 million.
Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Nomura, had estimated a 14 percent increase given the firm’s recent subscription streaming video deal with Amazon.
Despite ratings issues, Food Network revenue rose 5 percent, to $208.3 million — keeping it the media giant’s top revenue earner.
HGTV is catching up fast, though — it grew revenue by 11 percent, to $206 million.
Overall, SNI net profits fell 6 percent to $107.8 million, or 72 cents a share. Revenue rose 11 percent to $594 million.
During the quarter, Scripps increased its programming spend and also had an unfavorable tax adjustment of $8 million.