August 14, 2006

Meet the Programmer: Travel Channel–See It, Book It, Experience It

Travel Channel wants to whet your appetite for a trip, help book your ticket and sell you mobile guides when you get there. Cable operators could reap rewards, too.

By Catherine Applefeld Olson

When Patrick Younge left his native Britain in 2004 to take the helm of Travel Channel, he assumed he'd be running a television network. He is, and more.

In addition to overseeing Travel Channel, Younge is heading parent Discovery Communications' new travel conglomerate, which boasts a broadband channel, a video guides business (thanks to new acquisition Antenna Audio) and a service that will book your tickets for that two-week getaway to the islands.

"In my ideal world," the jovial Younge says only half in jest, "you'd watch one of our shows, go online and book a flight, go to the attraction, pick up an Antenna Audio tour on a mobile device and download the corresponding videos you want to see."

Content for years to sit on the sideline as Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz and Travelocity took flight, Travel now sits at the center of the just-formed Discovery Travel Media (DTM). Unlike the above-mentioned travel brokers, DTM does not want to develop a transactional business by itself. Instead, it wants to parlay its content provider roots into a new business, one that makes money licensing travel programming to other companies that book trips. With the right partnership or acquisition of a travel aggregator, forming a new travel company is also not out of its realm of possibility.

Local Flavor With Joan Cusack, coming soon from Travel Channel.

Besides snatching up multimedia tour guide company Antenna Audio and launching a broadband channel, the company recently made VOD inroads and is poised to unveil a mobile channel. Still Travel Channel—with 84 million cable and satellite subscribers (it's also carried by Verizon)—is DTM's biggest moneymaker. Discovery sees the network's linear programming as its core, if not a golden ticket to multiplatform success.

For cable operators, DTM's vision of world domination holds promise for expanded partnerships across linear, VOD and broadband lines. "Cable operators are absolutely at the core of my thinking about Discovery Travel Media," says Younge. "Ideally you push and pull people among the platforms."

Clearly there's money to be made in the transactional travel business. Expedia contributed to more than half of the $16 billion market cap of Barry Diller's IAC before he spun it back out last year, analysts say. Many online travel companies are solidly profitable, they add. This year an astounding 83% of travelers researched and/or booked their summer trips online, according to the Summer Travel Consumer Preference Index. But is there enough room on the strip for one more hotel? And can DTM build a business by just providing content to whet customers' appetites?

Discovery is hedging its bets. For more than three years Travel Channel has maintained a website link to search engine and booking agent OneTravel.com, a relationship that earns Travel revenue but one the network oddly has never publicized. Now, while actively searching for additional travel aggregator partners, DTM wants to license Travel Channel content to companies in the transactional business.

Here's where Travel Channel can help cable operators. As operators consider adding travel sections to their Internet portals—Comcast, for one, did so this spring—Travel Channel video could enrich the customer experience. Few would debate that Travel Channel maintains the world's richest library of travel-related video.

Comcast's new travel-area links users to search engine Kayak.com, but with its rich library of travel programming, "Travel Channel would be a much more valuable partner in that aspect," says Adi Kishore, Yankee Group senior analyst. "Cable operators have either no travel portal or a portal without a whole lot of content," he adds. "They obviously could become a lot richer if powered by Travel Channel." Comcast declined to comment.

"Partnering up would seem to be the most logical for Travel," adds Kishore. "That way Discovery strengthens its relationship with its affiliates—which is always a good thing—and maybe this could factor into carriage agreements in the future."

The cable scenario bodes well both on- and offline: Imagine a scenario where a viewer watches a Travel Channel destination segment, then goes to the operator's site to get additional content-rich information and books a trip. VOD personalizes the options even more.

Back in the here and now, Travel Channel launched its own broadband channel, Travel Channel Beyond, in April. The site contains primarily repurposed programming, plus exclusive v-logs aimed at younger viewers. "If we can't get them on the TV screen, we'll happily take them on the Web," Younge says.

On the TV screen, where Travel Channel garnered a 0.2 total day and 0.4 prime time Nielsen rating for the first quarter, the network is working hard to reestablish its reputation as a travel-passionate destination. During our conversation preceding this article, Younge used the word "passion" no less than 12 times to describe Travel Channel staff, programming and viewers.

Younge, a Brit who joined Travel last February from BBC Sport, has been cutting back on running staid anthologies and cranking up the network's international focus. This year the network will increase spending on shows about international destinations to 45%. The remaining 55% will be spent on shows dealing with domestic locales.

POST 9/11 REALITY The uptick in international focus signals Travel Channel's first major programming overhaul since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks put global travel in a vise. When Americans began clinging closer to home, Travel Channel joined in the flag-waving and began carrying more shows about U.S. tourist havens like Las Vegas, Miami and Hawaii.

"But to build a passion-based network, we have to do more than that," Younge says now. While the fourth season of World Poker Tour remains strong, it's telling that series like Most Amazing Vacation Homes are on the chopping block, replaced by the likes of Moms on the Road: An African Adventure (can you say "Angelina"?); This Job's a Trip, a series where adventurous types get to try their fantasy job while on vacation; and a new version of the popular 5 Takes that follows tourists from the Pacific Rim during a Stateside visit.

The network is also stepping up its Hollywood quotient with Drew Carey's Sporting Adventures (World Cup fans may have caught Carey's debut TV show and v-log from Frankfurt) and upcoming Local Flavor With Joan Cusack. "Household names are one way of bringing people to the network, but at the same time all of these people are actually travel-passionate," Younge says. There's that word again.

Aside from his regular series, travel-passionate Carey also contributes to Travel Channel Beyond and will have an on-demand presence. Another new series, Not Your Average Travel Guide, was created similarly to play linearly or be sliced into a handful of VOD-friendly segments. Content from Antenna Audio, which provides multi-language guides for 20 countries and 350 locations like Ellis Island and Buckingham Palace, also has VOD ramifications. "They've got excellent content, which clearly cable operators want to have as well," Younge says. "We're creating content based around these partners that we can play in the VOD space."

In the mobile arena, the 24/7 Travel Channel Mobile launches this summer with city guides, walking tours and other utility-based content from Antenna Audio, Travel Channel and sister Discovery networks. "As mobile distributors enable GPS functionality, consumer travel opportunities will grow exponentially," Younge says.

Travel Channel at a Glance

Launched: 1987
Ownership: DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS INC.
Headquarters: SILVER SPRING, MD.
Subscribers: 84 MILLION
Ratings: 0.2 TOTAL DAY RATING; 0.4 PRIME TIME FOR Q1 2006
Top Executives: Billy Campbell, president, Discovery Networks U.S.; Clark Bunting, EVP, Discovery U.S. Networks Group; Patrick Younge, EVP/GM, Travel Channel; Patrick Lafferty, SVP, marketing, travel channel