In a departure from its typical home-and-lifestyle niche, Scripps Networks has agreed to buy music network Great American Country for $140 million.
The network is owned by Jones Media, whose CEO Glenn Jones was once a major operator before selling his systems to Comcast in 1998. Scripps executives say GAC’s viewership - though tiny - is a good demographic fit with the 25-54 demo of Scripps’ other networks.
But other than a celebrity cooking show, GAC has very little of the kind of home and lifestyle programming that fill other Scripps networks like HGTV and Food Network.
Still, the price might come to a low, low, $4.50 per subscriber, though it’s not clear what Scripps means when it says the network reaches "34 million Nielsen-rated households."
