Former MTV Execs To Acquire Plum TV

LXTV co-founders Joseph Varet and Morgan Hertzan today announced an agreement to purchase Plum TV, a lifestyle network covering eight markets. The purchase of Plum, founded in 2004, follows a bankruptcy auction in the Southern District of New York. Hertzan and Varet will serve as co-presidents with Hertzan based in New York and Varet based in Los Angeles.

The new ownership group will continue the network’s programming focus on home, travel, food, and wellness. Plum TV will operate as a national network and hopes to expand its distribution across the country via digital, television and out-of-home media.

Plum TV is currently distributed on cable television systems in Miami; Aspen, Colo.; Vail, Colo.; Telluride, Colo.; New York’s Hamptons; Sun Valley, Idaho; Nantucket, Mass.; and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., at PlumTV.com, and on Plum TV’s video-on-demand iPhone app.

“We’re thrilled to get started on our next venture,”  Hertzan said. “Plum offers a great opportunity to build an international lifestyle multi-media business and will provide platforms where advertisers can reach the most desirable demographic in an environment that reflects the quality and excellence of their brands. We have many exciting programming plans for Plum which we will announce in the coming weeks and months.”

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) advised Hertzan and Varet on the transaction and will provide advisory services to Plum TV.  The acquirers were represented by the multi-national law firm Paul Hastings LLP.

Hertzan and Varet, former MTV executives, co-founded LXTV, which produces and distributes lifestyle entertainment television, online video and out-of-home programming, in 2006. LXTV was acquired in January 2008 by the NBC-owned TV stations division of NBCUniversal.