But the 25-year TV news veteran, and former WCPO-TV news director and I-Team boss, says he couldn't be happier running cable's Do It Yourself home improvement channel.

        “I'm having a ball,” says Mr. Zarchin, who resigned as Channel 9 news director in 1997 to take over the Knoxville production facility for E.W. Scripps, the Cincinnati-based parent of Channel 9 and the Scripps Networks (HGTV, Food, DIY, Fine Living).

Zarchin

        “I'm 52-years-old, and I'm doing something totally fresh and new. How many people get to do what they love, yet do something totally different?” says Mr. Zarchin, DIY president since its launch on Sept. 30, 1999.

        Mr. Zarchin was summoned to Los Angeles for Scripps cable planning meetings during the Television Critics Association summer press tour. We hooked up at the HGTV party for critics at a 1920s Hollywood Hills mansion once owned by silent film star Antonio Moreno.
       

Still telling stories

        At DIY, he applies his journalism training to oversee production of shows such as Weekend Handyman, Wood Works, DIY Home Repair and Remodeling and countless hours of DIY Workshop on everything from flooring to fencing.

        “At the heart of it is still reporting and storytelling,” he says. “I ask the same questions that I did when I was the news director: What is the viewer benefit? What do they get out of it? But it's not a story, it's a whole program.”

        At Channel 9, asking those questions resulted in award-winning investigative reports about rebuilt wrecked autos being sold to unsuspecting customers, and Japanese machine tools being sold as American-made products by a Florence company.

        At DIY, it means asking which tools might be right for the job — something Mr. Zarchin admits he knew little about. But he can always ask his wife, Cathy, one of the network's biggest fans.

        “She can do anything. My wife has a toolbox that would make an apprentice carpenter envious,” he says.“One Valentine's Day, I got her a leather tool belt, and you would have thought it was a gift from Tiffany's.”
       

Strong Web connection

        His journalistic instincts honed at Channel 9, CBS News, Chicago's WBBM-TV and New York's WNYW-TV help him guide DIY in giving viewers valuable information they can't find anywhere else. Not only does DIY do very basic show-and-tell programs, but plans with step-by-step instructions are posted on the channel's Web site, www.diynet.com.

TALK OF TOUR

Donahue on Enron: Phil Donahue returns to his element, working with a studio audience, when he conducts a live town hall meeting with former Enron employees today (8 p.m., MSNBC).     He will telecast his new prime-time Donahue show from the Houston Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, a critic of big business for whom Mr. Donahue campaigned two years ago, and Texas writer Molly Ivins will participate in the discussion.     Enron movie: Fox's FX cable channel is developing a movie about the collapse of Enron, says Bob Cooper, CEO of Artisan Pictures. He's also working on a movie called American Taliban about John Walker Lindh with former 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman The Insider for the network.     Mr. Cooper's company produced RFK, a docudrama about Robert Kennedy starring Linus Roache, which premieres 8 p.m. August 25 on FX.

        “We've actually helped train TV viewers to become Web users,” he says. “We're attracting about 1 million unique visitors a month to our Web site.”

        Not bad for a cable channel reaching only 11 million homes, too tiny to get national Nielsen ratings. (He predicts the channel's reach will double by next summer.)

        DIY's latest promotional scheme also comes from Mr. Zarchin's TV news background. He borrowed the old P.M. Magazine format to launch DIY Cincinnati (10 a.m. Sunday, Channel 9), and similar weekend how-to shows hosted on Scripps TV stations by local personalities.

        “This is a first for Scripps, with the TV stations and cable channels working together (to cross promote) a show,” he says. “It's good programming, great information and content people want.”
       

Goal of 25 cities

        Stations outside the Scripps chain agree. Customized local DIY shows will air in 25 cities this fall, while Scripps sells the show for a national syndication launch in September 2003, he says.

        His news connections also resulted in recruiting Janette Smith, a former Channel 9 anchor now in Atlanta, to host the daily Ask DIY show (5 p.m. weekdays, 6 p.m. weekends).

        On DIY, viewers find everything from awls to zinnias. The network has specialty shows on gardening, woodworking, remodeling, decorating, landscaping, scrapbook making, cooking, crafts, classic car restoration and radio-controlled hobbies. (An eight-hour Scrapbooking marathon airs at noon Sept. 28.)

        In the fall, DIY goes after viewers with a reality-game show similar to the Learning Channel's popular Junkyard War.

        Warehouse Warriors, which moves from weekends to 9 p.m. Monday-Friday in October, features two three-person teams given eight hours to build a deck, bunk beds or a kitchen island.

        “They're a great combination of "how-to' and great take-away information, and great entertainment. Projects shouldn't be work. They should be fun,” he says.

        On the new Robot Warriors,two teams of college engineering students compete in building an operational robot that completes a specific task. The 16 participating universities will be paired in brackets, like the NCAA basketball tournament, with one team eliminated each week.

        “We call this a "how-to, out-do' show,” he says with a smile.

        So here's the big news: The Channel 9 boss who chased down some of Cincinnati's biggest stories, the guy who sent the I-Team to film city pothole workers and county building inspectors goofing off on the job, is happy shooting people hanging wallpaper and installing ceramic floors.

        He's also eager to build on his success.

       TV Critic John Kiesewetter is reporting from the summer press tour. E-mail: jkiesewetter@enquirer.com.
       
       

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