When Jay Holzer, the then-head of global production and development for Tastemade spoke at our Smart Kitchen Summit last year, he commented on how food-based content had moved from utility (learning how to make something) to entertainment (enjoying watching something get made).
Now Tastemade, a digital-first creator of lifestyle and food related content, will be entertaining people around the clock as a new, 24 hour linear internet TV channel on YouTube TV. This means that Tastemade programming will run all day, just like traditional networks, as part of the live YouTube TV package.
According to Variety, Tastemade will run some of their re-purposed library content on the YouTube TV and also launch ten new series, including:
- Origins, which follows chef Erwan Heussaff as he travels around remote Philippine islands to “discover the people, places and ingredients that define his home country.”
- Weird Food Jobs, which highlights nutty food jobs like “bubble-gum tester.”
- Just Jen, a studio cooking show starring Tastemade personality Jen Phnomrat.
YouTube TV costs $40 a month and includes live TV from major networks such as CBS, FOX and CNN. According to one Wall Street analyst last October, YouTube TV had 200,000 subscribers, and “could hit” as many as 2 million by the end of this year. For comparison, Tastemade’s free YouTube channel currently has more than one million subscribers.
The addition of Tastemade fills a hole in the burgeoning YouTube TV lineup, which does not include food-related channels like Food Network or Travel Channel. So Tastemade will be the only place YouTube TV audiences (however big) can get their cooking fix.
The deal is non-exclusive, so Tastemade can distribute it’s new, linear channel to other OTT or traditional platforms as well. It will also augment Tastemade’s revenue streams, which include its ad-supported YouTube channel as well as content subscriptions that offer a range content access starting at $4.99 a month and up to $49.99 a month.
If Tastemade’s new channel takes off, perhaps we’ll have to invite Holzer back to our 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit to see how entertaining launching a linear TV channel is.
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