Nantucket Nectars co-founder Tom Scott '89 may have sold his most famous business, but he's still juicing novel ideas.
Scott is now working as the chairman and CEO of Plum TV, a 16-month-old television station serving wealthy hangouts in the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, Aspen, Vail and, of course, Nantucket.
Plum TV resembles Nantucket Nectars in that it tries to approach a traditional, boring topic - here, local TV instead of sugary fruit drinks - in an interesting and dynamic way. While watching the station, one might see a documentary on the New York art world, then an interview with a corporate executive, followed by a local high school football game, all with a ticker at the bottom broadcasting everything from local events to reports of lost pets.
Scott, who worked for Brown TV as an undergraduate, thought of the idea in 2002, when he was the owner of Nantucket Television.
"There's something about Nantucket - its size and the seasonality - that brings interesting dynamics to the place. We're also in an age where, technologically speaking, local is possible. You can make programming and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to do it. We started to recognize that we were getting incredible viewership on Nantucket Television. I knew this anecdotally from walking up the street," he said.
Then, while on vacation in Costa Rica, he met residents of the Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard, who he learned have many of the same concerns as people in Nantucket. It was then that Scott knew a nationwide business could be formed out of the local, creative programming that he had tried in Nantucket. He also felt that having a multi-market business would allow him to bring in big name advertisers. So far, companies like Merrill Lynch, Volkswagen and J. Crew (which his wife founded), have signed up with Plum.
"There are all these problems for year-rounders: affordable housing, erosion, gentrification, finding good teachers. We realized these places had similar problems and similar demographics, so I thought that with good programming and national advertising that this could be a successful business model," Scott said.
He chose Plum as the channel's name because he wanted something unique and unexpected. He looked to the Nantucket Nectars' trademark purple color, a thesaurus and his experience in naming beverages, and the name was born.
Plum TV tries to market itself as being different. The company's Web site has a "manifesto" describing its mission. Its programming is designed to get the creative juices flowing and to be more intelligent and colorful, with new pilots like "On the Road" tracking the international travels of a stereotypical New Yorker and a morning show that brings in celebrity guests. Even local football games have flair, with features like instant replay. Scott calls it "PBS, but a little more fun and a little bit more eclectic."
In order to avoid serving up all sugar and no fruit, Plum TV gives its filmmakers lots of independence and creative control. Scott Norton '08, who interned in the company's Hamptons headquarters last summer as a "preditor" - a combination of producer, director and editor - said, "I could pitch ideas for coverage, and unlike any other TV station you will ever work at, you have complete creative control about what your content is. I could make choices about what questions I ask in a documentary, how I shoot it, how I cut it and pretty much everything else about it."
"We try to give people a lot of freedom they otherwise wouldn't get. These people want to make things that haven't been done before. It's a casual environment, but we work hard," Scott said. "We have a lot of dreamers around here, and I think that is an important part of any business."
Norton applied to work for Plum TV after hearing Nantucket Nectar co-founder Tom First '89 talk about Scott's company in a guest lecture to EN 9: "Management of Industrial and Nonprofit Organizations" last fall.
"I love film and video, and I have also been wanting to get into entrepreneurial business, so I applied, thinking it would be a great way to be in an upstart business while doing something that I love," Norton said of his unpaid internship, which included working on a video with musician Wyclef Jean, a weekly series on the sport of polo and some mini-documentaries.
The channel copes with the seasonality of its markets by localizing programming during the off-season, showing high school sports, local government meetings and shows such as "POV," where viewers get to meet local figures.
"Plum is always local, but there's a difference between what local means in the summer and what local means in the winter," Scott said.
He said he is focused on his work with Plum TV - his juice-making days appear to be over. "We are essentially consultants, and they call us when they need us. We do some marketing and advertising work for them, but it's a limited role," Scott said of his and First's relationship with Nantucket Nectars, which is now owned by Cadbury Schweppes.
"We're learning. The beginning is always hard and challenging. You put in a lot of time and you wonder where you're going sometimes," Scott said of his new venture.
Norton said he learned the importance of vision and motivation in entrepreneurship from his time at Plum TV, partly because it's still a small company that requires a lot of initiative from its employees.
Scott stressed that students should pursue their passions when searching for success. "Do what you love, and if you really pursue what you love, you will find that path on your own," he said. "It's scary as hell sometimes, but that's just all part of the fun."
