Kathleen Finch
Title: President, HGTV, DIY Network and Great American Country
Years in Cable: 16
Education: Stanford University
Best Advice in 7 Words or Less: Always be swinging for the fences.

Brooke Johnson
Title: President, Food Network and Cooking Channel
Education: BA and MA, Northwestern University
Best Advice in 7 Words or Less: Work hard; give other people credit.

Viewers seem to have an insatiable appetite for culinary and home lifestyles programming, and Scripps continues to keep their plates heaping across platforms. Already this year, Johnson has led the launch a new global service, “Discover Food Network,” on social messaging app Snapchat designed specifically to appeal to Snapchat’s core audience of social media-savvy millennials. Food Network remained a top 20 cable net in 2014, and Cooking Channel garnered a younger audience in 2014, its best-ever year for both ratings and time spent viewing. Finch celebrated HGTV’s 20th anniversary with a bang—the net’s highest-ever-rated December and continuation of its top spot among cable nets for upscale female viewers. DIY grew its adult prime ratings, and set records of its own for total day and weekend ratings in 2014, while Great American Country maintained its trajectory as one of the fastest-growing cable networks.

Johnson
Favorite screen: TV
Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat? Instagram
Favorite vacation spot: Costa Rica
Desert island album: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Dish I can make and that would impress a celebrity chef: Chile Con Carne
My favorite business/motivational book: Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Finch
The biggest innovation in cable over the last year: The proliferation of great content and all the different ways to watch it.
Favorite screen: An obscenely giant, room-dominating TV.
My favorite newfound hobby: Traveling for fun as opposed to work.
The technology that will most benefit cable over the next year is… a measurement system that accurately captures who’s watching what, where and when. Finally.
Favorite TV show as a kid: “The Brady Bunch” I desperately wanted to be Marcia.
Dish I can make and that would impress a celebrity chef: My family swears by my pasta with sausage sauce.
My favorite business/motivational book: New Rules of the Game by Susan Packard, someone with a long cable career and incredibly relevant insights.

The Daily

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Thursday–April 18

WICT Network Looks Back on Two Decades of PAR

It’s that time of year again for The WICT Network’s Signature Luncheon, and this Friday’s fete will be a massive celebration of 20 years of the organization’s PAR initiative.

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Apr 25
2024 Cablefax 100 Awards Magazine Release: April 25, 2024
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