and HBO Max Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys. Upon closer examination, the move, which could lead to a Magnolia-branded hub on HBO Max and the Gaines’ dipping their toe in scripted programming, is not that shocking. It just took the couple two mergers and three relationships to get there.
The Gaines’ Discovery journey began in July 2017 when the company announced that they had agreed to acquire Scripps, whose flagship network waswas that network’s flagship show. It was supposed to be a very brief journey; less than two months later, the Gaines’ announced that they were endingThe duo’s strained relationship with Kathleen Finch was widely believed to have played a major part in their decision not to renew their HGTV contracts.
At the time, the Gaineses didn’t have a relationship with Discovery CEO David Zaslav but they soon developed one. As he learned thatthe biggest hit in the portfolio of networks he was buying, was coming to an end, “It sucked all the air out of my lungs,” he told theZaslav traveled to the Gaines’ home in Waco, TX, where the couple’s sprawling lifestyle empire is based, to woo them back.
A straight return for the duo to HGTV was pretty much out of the question, but Zaslav found a way, elevating Finch to Chief Lifestyle Brands Officer of the combined Discovery-Scripps company and orchestrating a media joint venture between Discovery and the Gaines duo for Magnolia Network, a linear cable network to replace the DIY channel, and a digital brand for a subscription streaming service.
“We’ve got this bromance going on, David and I,” Chip Gaines said at the 2019 Discovery upfront soon after the joint venture was announced.f Fixer UpperThe Gaineses have enjoyed a special status at Discovery ever since, with Page reporting directly to Zaslav.
I love magnolianetwork but they tried to get people to pay for it with discoveryplus and it didn’t work. This is the content basic cable was made for! I feel like they’re about to spend $ again on good shows that nobody will watch until they flip them back to “free” cable.
Nicely written article
Yessss