Changing Courses At The Food Network

You can find chef Emeril Lagasse’s name and face all over a dozen cookbooks, 10 restaurants, lines of pots and pans, knives, Wedgwood dishes, spices, salad dressings and pasta sauces, and even a deep fryer.

Rachael Ray taped a show with former President Bill Clinton in April. Ms. Ray, one of the Food Network’s stars, renewed her contract last week. She has been with the channel since 2001.

But as of last week, it will no longer be found on new episodes of his signature “Emeril Live” show on the Food Network. The program taped its last installments and laid off a half-dozen staff members, bringing an end to an impressive 11-year, every-weeknight run.

Viewers will not see a difference for at least a year as the new episodes that have already been taped are shown. But industry executives are scratching their heads over why the network canceled “Emeril Live” — which they speculate became too expensive for its softening ratings — without having a new deal in place, given the role that his program played in the network’s success.

Food Network executives assert that Mr. Lagasse, who declined to comment, remains a valued member of the family. “All good things come to an end, and it was time to do something new,” said Brooke Johnson, the network’s president. “Right now, we’re figuring out what that something new is,” she said, noting that Mr. Lagasse’s “Essence of Emeril” on the network remains in production.

The cancellation of “Emeril Live” comes at a time when the Food Network is undergoing a transformation. Having taken food and chefs from what was once the domain of low-key public television to new celebrity heights, the network finds itself trying to retain the considerable revenue generated by what has become big business, even as it faces competition from all sides.

Executives at the Food Network and its parent, E. W. Scripps, paint a rosy picture of the network’s prime-time ratings. They say its average 2007 prime-time audience of 778,000 viewers is its highest ever and it has had success attracting the younger audiences that advertisers find especially attractive.

But the network’s total day ratings have dipped to an average of 544,000 people from 580,000 a year ago. More significant, its signature weekend block of instructional programs, known collectively as “In the Kitchen,” has lost 15 percent of its audience in the last year, to 830,000 viewers on average. This has left the network owing refunds, known as “make goods,” to advertisers, Ms. Johnson confirmed.

Bob Tuschman, Food Network’s senior vice president for programming and production, said the weekend ratings drop was “nothing we haven’t anticipated.” He said the network’s ratings in that time period grew by double digits in each of the last four years, growth that could not be sustained.

But the slowdown comes at an awkward time for Scripps: in October, the company announced that it would split in two, with the Food Network and HGTV anchoring the planned Scripps Networks Interactive. Scripps’s shares closed at $43.66 on Friday, down more than 18 percent from their 52-week high in January.

Slumping ratings are not the only obstacle facing the network. While the Food Network has been good at creating stars like Mr. Lagasse, Rachael Ray and Paula Deen and giving national exposure to chefs like Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, until recently it has not shared in their success beyond the network. A spokeswoman for the network said it had no stake in Mr. Lagasse’s considerable outside merchandising, for example.

About a year ago, the Food Network began aggressively trying to change that with new deals that were “way more onerous” from the stars’ point of view, said a person who has been affected by the changing strategy, by insisting on a stake in book deals and licensing ventures, and control over outside activities.

Ms. Johnson, the Food Network president, declined to discuss contracts, but noted that as the network has changed in its own mind from a television network to a brand, it has decided that “we like to be in partnership with our talent in a variety of venues.” She added, “To my knowledge, the talent is happy with the deals we have with them.”

Indeed, in the spring, Food Network plans to introduce its first celebrity chef branded product line, from Bobby Flay at the retailer Kohl’s, which in September introduced a line of several hundred Food Network branded products.

And last week, one of its biggest stars, Ms. Ray, renewed her Food Network contract, which was to expire at the end of the year. Ms. Ray got her start on the network in 2001, with “30 Minute Meals.” Last year, she went on to a daytime syndicated talk show, which Scripps partly owns.

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