How a family-owned home furniture store heir is gaining a streaming foothold with The Design Network

• The Design Network’s latest deals include Hulu and Dish TV
   
• The company is ramping original content investment with 12 series in production
   
• Custom sponsor content integrations are key to the ad-supported streaming channel’s viability

Jason Harris didn’t start his career in the TV or entertainment industry. Instead, he spent the first two decades at his family-owned home furnishing store, Furnitureland South, cultivating a passion and expertise in home design. Established in 1969 by his parents, Harris co-owns and helped to grow the store to what is now 1.3 million square feet of showroom space located in High Point, North Carolina, counting over 1,000 furniture manufacturer partners and, according to Harris, doing nearly $200 million in annual furniture sales from a single location.

Experiences there underpinned the impetus for Harris’ current venture, where he’s spent the last nearly 12 years working to create a dedicated, premium, home design-focused TV channel as founder and CEO of The Design Network. By leaning on his home design roots and relationships, efforts have translated into an ad-supported streaming foothold, with distribution across 17 FAST, AVOD, SVOD and pay TV platforms, including most recent deals with Hulu and Dish TV. And where Harris sees plenty of runway for opportunity.

In an interview with StreamTV Insider, Harris described the origin of The Design Network. It came during a meeting about a decade ago with furniture retail executives, at a time when he saw firsthand that home furnishing brands were struggling and needed to find new avenues to reach consumers.  With popularity of networks like HGTV Harris understood that video is an effective and powerful means to reach consumers. But the interior furnishing brands he dealt with daily weren’t really shown on TV. During a brainstorming session Harris floated an idea – one met with raised eyebrows from some –  to launch a TV network squarely focused on home design. Immediately he went to GoDaddy and found The Design Network URL was available to buy. And he did.

“I had a passion for storytelling, I had a passion for design and home, and I just gave it a shot,” Harris told StreamTV Insider.

While armed with an idea, a URL and roster of furniture partners on hand, success was still far from guaranteed. 

Bootstrapping the company to fuel the venture for the first several years, those days were marked by efforts to produce premium, television-quality content and align with experts in the home design space. Early on Harris tapped his furniture manufacturers, signing on around a dozen as co-founding sponsors for the network, who received marketing and promotional benefits. The CEO described a concentrated focus for a handful of years to build up content within its genre lane of the home – spanning interior design, home decorating, organization and DIY, and entertaining at home. Still, he acknowledged the company just didn’t have enough at first.

Even without as robust a content lineup as he would’ve liked, it was about five years ago when The Design Network got what Harris called “a really big break” by way of a meeting at a television conference with Takashi Nakano, head of content and business development at free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service Samsung TV Plus.

“We didn’t have quite enough content but we had a guy that believed in us,” he said of Nakano. 

According to Harris, Nakano was aware of and interested in filling a void for home lifestyle programming on the electronics giant’s built-in free streaming service (which separately, just this month disclosed amassing 88 million monthly active users) and decided to give The Design Network a chance.

It was as TDN was working to birth 24/7 linear ad-supported home design network, having built up some video on-demand content but struggling to drive a significant audience to it.

Harris understood he needed to go “where the fish are biting” and to platforms where people were watching TV.

Samsung introduced the network to a wider audience as they struck a distribution deal, and The Design Network was off. 

After securing distribution on Samsung’s FAST service, TDN started leaning into more formatted, longer-form content.

“And all of a sudden…all these different platforms started coming to us,” Harris recalled.

Distribution expands, Hulu and Dish the latest

Fast forward to 2024 and The Design Network now counts distribution across around 17 different platforms, including for its linear 24/7 FAST channel and video on-demand content, as well as crossing over into the more traditional pay TV space.

In September, Dish marked its latest deal. Dish Network already distributed TDN through its Sling TV Freestream FAST and last month expanded that to Dish TV subscribers, offering over 80 programs from TDN, including Ruckers Reno with Darius Rucker and Celebrity Homes Unlocked with Andrea Boehlke.

It marked continued traction, as the company in July snagged Disney’s Hulu as a partner, adding 100 hours-worth of shows under an agreement that represented TDN’s largest VOD deal to-date, and one that Harris said is unique.  In Hulu’s case, it’s a two-year broad licensing deal, where the Disney-owned streaming service is essentially licensing TDN’s entire content library for on-demand viewing, with planned quarterly refreshes of the content.

“We’ve really gotten some great traction there with this VOD [on Hulu],” Harris said.

TDN’s other VOD-only deals include free ad-supported streaming services Fox’s Tubi in the U.S. and Canada, Paramount’s Pluto TV, The Roku Channel and Vizio’s WatchFree+. TDN’s content and 24/7 linear channel is available on Rakuten TV, TCL, Xumo, Philo and Dish’s Sling TV. While primarily a FAST channel, it’s also behind paywalls on virtual MVPD Fubo and pay TV provider DirecTV, as well as Dish. 

When starting the venture, distribution on platforms like Dish and DirecTV was a dream for Harris, who said it was a “really a big deal for us” when they came to fruition earlier this year.

Distribution-wise, TDN wants to be anywhere viewers are and is seeking ubiquity. Harris expressed a desire to also be offered through additional traditional and virtual pay TV providers, such as Comcast. There are still other major players on its wish list, namely vMVPD leader YouTube TV and a deal for the linear channel on Hulu – the latter which he said TDN is working on with the platform.

According to Harris, the TDN team – which now counts 10 payroll employees and more than 50 independent contractors – grew the company sustainably over the last decade with no outside investment. Without disclosing specifics, he told StreamTV Insider that TDN is profitable and investment into the business through production, operations and marketing scales annually as it continues to grow. Debt-free, the company isn’t seeking or planning to source any outside funds.

It’s also exploring new AI-powered dubbing capabilities, to potentially export content to international markets. The U.S. and Canada are its primary markets, but also counts distribution in New Zealand and Australia via Samsung TV Plus, as well as smaller English-speaking countries in Europe via Rakuten. According to Harris, the network will probably start dubbing a few of its titles next year, test that on-demand to see if there’s traction, and potentially drive it to produce some original content in Spanish or Portuguese and expand further internationally.

The goal, no matter where the TV distribution happens, is for TDN to become a household channel and name brand in the home space.

“We want to be the ultimate source of inspiration on television for all things home and design…wherever that takes us,” he said.

Part of the appeal for platforms is the audience, where Harris said TDN attracts a 90% female audience – a demo he thinks is underserved by some platforms. And a top priority for TDN is standing out and growing viewership by producing original, high-quality programming.

Content investment ramps

There are well-established big-name home lifestyle networks out there, like the HGTV’s of the world, but Harris noticed a lot of home-focused programming had emphasized aspects like real estate, flipping houses and renovation, with less available about design. Focusing on the softer, design aspects of home programming, TDN believes it has found its niche.

It produced about six seasons of series Reveal, which does high-end home tours with interior designers that have lived multi-year projects. One of its most popular shows, per Harris, also in its sixth season is TinyBnB. That’s hosted by YouTuber Levi Kelly who travels around the country staying in and exploring features of tiny home Airbnbs.

In a crowded FAST space, the channel aims to stand out with recognizable names and investments in fresh, original, and professionally produced content – that also leans on home design talent and experts and social media influencers to bolster recognition. 

Investment to expand content and improve production quality is poised to ramp, with Harris pegging it as a key priority for the remainder of the year and going into 2025.

“We are really elevating the program and I’m investing like we never have before” in new shows, Harris said.

While declining to quantify that investment, he told StreamTV Insider that TDN has 12 different series currently in production.  Some of those will be rolling out over the next three to six months and Harris categorized them as “big moments” for the channel. One includes a design and lifestyle talk show premiering in January with long-time HGTV talent Sabrina Soto from her home in Los Angeles.  It already has 30 guests lined up that together have over 20 million Instagram followers, according to Harris. It also has a show wrapping up with DIY expert and former 98-degrees band member Drew Lachey called Date My House.

“People really celebrate the experts and talent,” he noted.

Harris said social platforms like Instagram have served as a great source to discover talent but acknowledged that not all social influencers with big followings translate into strong TV hosts.  But while TDN hasn’t seen a ton of crossover when featuring a host with a big social media presence, using talent with a throng of social followers doesn’t hurt. Social influencers like to talk about and promote the shows on their social platforms as well and lines are blurring, he noted. Harris believes viewers still want a premium, lean-back living room experience, but leveraging TDN and influencer hosts in other areas beyond the programming can help be an impetus for full activations for brands. 

The flow of fresh content is one way Harris sees TDN differentiating in a crowded entertainment space, particularly as others pull back on originals.

Monetization through custom content sponsor integrations

Without a standalone app or subscription service of its own, and like most free streaming content and channel owners, TDN generates revenue primarily via advertising. And as owner of a home furnishing retail campus and TDN’s focus on home design, Harris realized there are plenty of advertisers endemic to this type of content.  

Currently the company generates revenue both from in-stream advertising and custom sponsorships that are integrated within programming – the latter which has proved key to the company’s success.

Some in the industry have raised concerns about effectively monetizing FAST channels, with some citing lackluster ad fill rates and a desire to backfill when platforms themselves can’t sell inventory.  But that doesn’t appear to be an issue for TDN, which programs eight minutes of ads per hour with four, two-minute ad blocks.

“Our fill rates are great through these platforms,” Harris said. He thinks that’s, in part, because TDN hits an underserved demographic on platforms, adding “the monetization has been really good,” without disclosing specifics. He called out monetization as particularly strong on Samsung and Fubo, as well as Amazon’s Freevee, saying the latter really grew alongside the channel this year.

Some of its deals are inventory splits, where the platform sells half of the ad inventory and TDN sells the other portion. But it’s only recently been making efforts to build up its own ad sales operations following the DirecTV deal, so mostly opts for revenue shares where the platform sells all of the inventory and TDN receives a check for its portion.

Sponsor content integrations are the other key piece of monetization, where TDN works with brands to do custom integrations within the programming.

“Without that, I don’t think we’d be very viable and able to produce the volume of original content that we’re doing,” he said. “We found a real niche with these endemic brands where they love coming inside the storyline and being part of it.” 

Per Harris, TDN revenue is pretty evenly split between in-stream advertising and sponsorships this year, after previously being more heavily weighted towards the latter in prior years. He acknowledged a bit of waning in sponsorships as the space became more saturated with an explosion of FAST channel and platform options and brands pulled back on some upper funnel marketing. But added that TDN is “still finding really good success with sponsorships.”

It also aims to deliver value to brands that sponsor custom content integrations by working with and utilizing other ad inventory opportunities on distributor partner platforms to showcase the brands and programming and drive tune-in.  

It’s done work with distributors like Hulu, DirecTV, Samsung, Pluto TV and others to buy ad inventory from the platform and resell it to TDN advertisers that are doing sponsor content integrations. This opens up ad inventory for brands they wouldn’t otherwise have access to, Harris said, such as display and hero banner ads in the EPG that are usually reserved for promoting channels and content.

TDN can co-brand those display-type units on streaming platforms with brands like Home Depot or Kohler, for example, which are also featured in the programming.  

“We’re able to go out and a targeted tune-in advertising that drives traffic, in a very targeted way, to the show,” Harris said. “There’s so many of these endemic brands that really find value in the context of The Design Network…it’s just a hand in glove sort of fit for them.”

Early on shoppable

With a genre like home design, integrating shoppable elements seems like it could be a natural fit and Harris early on saw potential for TDN as a mechanism to sell furniture.

It’s something he tried and spent “a lot of money” on for about two or three years, developing shoppable content with products integrated into TDN shows. He even developed a software and e-commerce platform that enabled timed annotations to display a product in the show that would pop out and allow viewers to click on and buy. However, it didn’t quite hit the mark, and the attempt may have been a bit too early to the game.

While Harris still thinks the idea of shoppable content features are great, for TDN he was integrating higher-end big-ticket home furnishing items, which aren’t necessarily the impulse-type purchases people want to make while watching TV.  Although shoppable TV is a notion that content owners and advertisers would likely love to capitalize on – and several are experimenting in different ways – consumer behavior wasn’t quite there yet for TDN, and perhaps still isn’t. Harris believes viewers want a lean-back entertaining TV viewing experience and don’t necessarily want to pause to purchase.

Major streamers and platforms have been testing out different methods for commerce or shoppable TV – such as NBCUniversal making certain episodes of select Bravo series shoppable on Peacock, streamer Tastemade partnering with ShopsenseAI to create virtual storefronts showcasing items in an episode that are available to purchase, and Disney’s shoppable beta program, with new formats to send prompts or more information to viewers’ phone via push notification or email for a less disruptive viewing experience.

It’s something “I’ve got my finger on,” Harris said of shoppable elements, where there might be potential down the line but where he sees players like e-commerce giant Amazon as best positioned. 

Still, product brand sponsors within content are part of the play for TDN, where he cited good success with brands.

And for brands that lean in, Harris sees TDN as a “conduit into this whole ecosystem of connected television for them, contextually, with content that we know is king.”

With an idea born in the furniture capital of the world, Harris appears poised to further solidify The Design Network’s place as a home design destination on the TV map.