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YouTube to Launch Food Channel
- Associated Press, Thursday, May 17, 2012 9:39 AM
On July 2, YouTube is launching a new food channel called HUNGRY, as part of its massive launch of 100+ new channels of niche programming. The video-sharing giant has hired a handful of food television veterans who all believe that the future of their genre is online, not on the TV.
"The wonderful thing about YouTube is it has 800 million users worldwide and they all need to eat," Bruce Seidel, HUNGRY’s overseer and a former Food Network and Cooking Channel exec, tells the Associated Press. "I'd like to get just 1 percent of them."
HUNGRY aims to have 12 series on the site by the end of the summer, all of which will be produced in partnership with multimedia studio (and branded entertainment specialist) Electus-IAC. One of the series, called “Duff’s Food World,” will be a food variety show featuring chef Duff Goldman, also formerly of Food Network. Goldman will also serve as a talent and programming consultant.
"Basically, the cooking show on television is almost dead," Goldman tells AP. "When you look at the programming on any kind of cable food channel, you kind of find that everything is being replaced by travelogues, competition, reality. There is not a lot of instruction." YouTube, on the other hand, “doesn't have any boundaries. I don't need to make it 22 minutes. I don't need to make any sponsors happy. I can get away with stuff," he said.
