Showroom spotlight: owners of the state's largest furniture store see a big future on the small screen.

AuthorPrice, Courtney
PositionIDEA LAB - Furnitureland South

On the set of Space Off, two teams of interior designers devise a plan to decorate a bedroom for a client's anniversary. High-end furniture and accessories fill the rooms. The lights are bright, and there are cameras in just about every direction. The duo with the best design will move on to the next stage of the style competition. This show airs on The Design Network, a home and garden style channel with offices in all the right places: New York City, Los Angeles and Jamestown, a town of 3,600 people sandwiched between High Point and Greensboro.

That's right, Jamestown, where something disruptive is going on in the basement of Furnitureland South, the self-proclaimed world's largest furniture store with more than 1 million square feet of showroom space. Space Off and other shows on The Design Network aren't made for television; its series are tailored for an online audience.

Network founder and CEO Jason Harris grew up in furniture, the youngest son of the late Darrell and Stella Harris, who opened their store in 1969. His older brother, Jeff, is now president. After leading the company's marketing and sales for 18 years, Jason now focuses on connecting with an online audience that wants a constant stream of guidance on how to spruce up their homes.

Harris conceived the network after attending a discussion at High Point University about challenges in the industry. There was a lot of talk about supply-chain issues and manufacturing, but something was missing. "Nobody was talking about connecting these brands with the consumer."

Harris' goal is to take advantage of the rapid shift from cable and satellite TV subscriptions to less-expensive, on-demand video services such as Netflix and Hulu--a trend popularly known as "cord-cutting." When seeking startup partners in 2012, Harris was ahead of his time. Forty percent of U.S. households subscribe to video-on-demand services, according to a report by Nielsen NV, which measures TV viewership. Those households spend about 75 minutes longer each day watching video, compared with people who have Internet connections but no video-on-demand service.

"We've seen so many changes to entire industries, like music and phone books, with the Internet, but it really hadn't changed television yet when I started this. So there's an opportunity to create a new type of network that's designed for all screens," he says.

The approach is multifaceted. The network produces streaming content for its website. It...

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