July 17th, 2005 11:00pm

By Jonathan Darman

read this article on MSNBC

Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, comes from a
family more accustomed to owning national networks than turning up
on cable access. But this summer he's appearing on "Open Exchange"
on Long Island, N.Y.'s Channel 18, chatting with CEOs (Bear Stearns's
Ace Greenberg and BMG North America's Clive Davis were recent guests)
from the comfort of his own home. It's "Wayne's World" for the
superrich, but Tisch likes the low visibility. "I can have the kind
of conversations I'd be having if I were out to dinner with these
people," he says, "only the viewer's along to eavesdrop."

Not just any viewer. "Open Exchange" broadcasts on Plum TV, the
cable network that caters to the privileged folk of Nantucket and
Martha's Vineyard, Mass.; the Hamptons in New York and Vail, Colo.
This summer season is bringing in the largest audiences to date—as
many as 457,000 viewers on some nights—and it hopes to boost its
winter audience with a new station in Aspen, Colo. Plum woos
advertisers with the quality, not the quantity, of its viewership.
The network's market research shows an average Plum viewer earns
$218,000 annually with household assets of $2.5 million. With
advertisers like Sensient Jets, a private jet company, and the
investment firm of Friedman Billings Ramsey, Plum serves a unique
function: local programming for the global elite.

Plum follows a "by the rich, for the rich" philosophy. In
addition to "Open Exchange," it broadcasts "Duff Talk," hosted by
society figure Patricia Duff, and "Heads and Tales," a children's
series with model Sophie Dahl. Wyclef Jean wrote the theme music
for the morning shows. The network's founders, Tom Scott (the
multimillionaire Nantucket Nectars "Juice Guy"), Cary Woods (the
Hollywood producer of films like "Swingers" and "Kids") and Chris
Glowacki (a former programming executive at NBC), say Plum's
advertising model, which generally favors single-ad-buyer
sponsorship of programming instead of traditional 30-second spots,
is a more effective means of reaching consumers in a TiVo era,
where "commercials" no longer exist. Advertisers like what they
see. Alex Bogusky, creative director of the ad firm Crispin,
Porter and Bogusky, says the network "could create a whole new
model for how advertising is produced."

It isn't there yet. Currently, Plum pays cable providers to
broadcast its content in all its existing markets except Aspen,
and cable-industry analysts say an expansion model based on similar
arrangements in new markets wouldn't work. Plum's founders, who
won't say if their network makes a profit, argue that they don't
want a big national footprint (though Sun Valley, Idaho, and Park
City, Utah, are on the wish list) and are focused on making Plum
destination TV in the places where it already broadcasts. "We want
to have it so that when you go on vacation you look forward to
reading the local paper, going to your favorite restaurant and
watching Plum TV," says Woods. The network is wary of getting
too big, too fast. After all, as any Hamptons hostess knows,
too much riffraff can quickly ruin a party.