December 1st, 2005 12:00am

By Ross Frazier

read this article on The Brown Daily Herald site

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."