E.W. SCRIPPS TARGETING 'NET OPPORTUNITIES.(BUSINESS)

The E.W. Scripps Co. on Monday launched an interactive media unit designed to find business opportunities on the Internet and other new media.

Frank Gardner, 57, the company's senior vice president/television since 1993, will lead the new unit. He was appointed senior vice president/interactive media.

Cincinnati-based Scripps plans to build on Web sites it already has for its TV channels: Home & Garden Television (hgtv.com), the Food Network (foodtv.com) and Do It Yourself (diynet.com). United Media, the company's licensing and syndication subsidiary, operates comics.com.

Scripps also said it is looking for opportunities in wireless applications, interactive television and digital broadcast TV.

''Frank Gardner's role will be to lead an interactive media SWAT team that zeroes in on the ideas and technologies that hold the most promise for Scripps,'' said William R. Burleigh, Scripps' chairman and chief executive officer.

Gardner has supervised the start-up and growth of the company's Home & Garden Television cable channel, acquisition of the Food Network cable channel and the 1999 beginning of Do It Yourself, an interactive television and Internet channel.

He also oversaw Scripps' 10 broadcast television stations. James M. Hart, senior vice president of the company's broadcast subsidiary, has been directing day-to-day operations of the Scripps television stations and will now have total responsibility for the group.

Gardner joined Scripps in 1976 after serving as news director at CBS-owned television stations in Chicago and New York. For Scripps, he served as general manager of WCPO-TV (Channel 9) and corporate vice president in charge of broadcasting before he left for two years beginning in 1991 to become senior vice president/news programming for Fox Broadcasting Co.

Scripps is one of 12 broadcast companies that have established iBlast, a company that will deliver music, video, games and software over the digital television spectrum to consumers.

Gardner's interactive media group also will work with the company's venture capital fund, Scripps Ventures, to identify strategic opportunities that would fit with existing Scripps businesses.

Scripps is a diversified media company whose properties include The Post and 18 other daily newspapers.

New-tech media

Scripps' new-media strategy includes investments in interactive technology companies, including Pentawave and Zatso (formerly ReacTV) that are developing publishing and broadcast Internet applications.

Scripps also owns 12 percent of AdOne, which operates the national, online classified advertising site ClassifiedWarehouse.com.