It's an Outrage!

( little bit of a Kyle rant... just skip, really )

From today's Huffington Post : " The Food Network's ratings took a steep hit in the latter part of 2010, the New York Post reports: In the fourth quarter, Food Network, which helped launch the careers of celebrity chefs Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray, posted a 10.3 percent drop among viewers ages 25 to 54, considered a key category for advertisers.
What's more, the network's quarterly declines worsened throughout the year, falling 3.3 percent in the second quarter and 4.5 percent in the third quarter, according to Nielsen figures Even worse for the Food Network, their primetime ratings for women 18 to 49 and 25 to 54 -- their key demographic -- fell 9% last month, mainly on their cherished lineup of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Chopped, The Best Thing I Ever Ate and Unwrapped."


UNWATCHABLE, seriously. There is very little informative cooking anymore. Yes, during the day... for a few hours there are some " real " cooking shows, but they are all ALL about the personality of the " cooks " all of which are young pretty women. NOT that there is anything wrong with that, but I just don't want to watch them. You can tell if you watch " the next food network star " which I have a few seasons, what they are looking for is WRONG. " give us your back story " croons the wildly over permed Susie Fogelson, Senior vice president of marketing, creative services and brand strategy. We do not want to watch as you build your next brand. There is not one serious chef, cook or wannabe in America that wants any of Rachel Ray's crappy orange cookware, really. ( Nor Emeril or Paula, really ) We want to learn something!  See an expert cook do something we can not, a style we do not know, a cuisine that we are not familiar with. Or someone with a wonderful personal style, like Ina, who can and does teach us something new about food we already know, not your crappy ass cookie cutter sorority girls... just makin' it alone in the big city!  If we wanted VEAL ORLOFF, we would watch MTM reruns!

There is the COOKING CHANNEL now, which I do think is still owned by the Food Network ( well both owned by Scripps which also has HGTV and Travel among others..) LOVE Cooking channel, a BIG Saturday night for old married man Kyle is plopped down in front of the wide screen with Koda and a snack and a full evening of British Cooking shows. " Gas mark 4" just puts a smile on my face!  But NONE of these shows would ever make it on today's Foodtv. The Two Fat Ladies, who I do indeed love, would be laughed off from the get go!


Another GREAT cooking show that was never shown on US tv is" Neneh and Andi Dish it UP " 1980's pop star and one time Atlantan, Neneh Cherry and her pal do all sorts of wonderful things. Like so many other BBC shows, there are not enough of them, but some rainy cold night, click around the youtube and watch these wonderful shows.