Food network?

[Lateralus]

I have begun this post in curiosity of what chefs, food bloggers, egulleter's think about the progress of the chef/ restaurant industry portrayed on food network programming....from a show variety stand point, to its target aduience, personalities, etc.... to other programms on other stations(Bravo: Top Chef, Fine Living: Made to Order/ Opening Soon, Follow that Food, Travel Channel: Taste America, etc....?)

I have an idea that I will explain in posts to follow. And I welcome opinions and comments of this idea.

Edited February 14, 2007 by Lateralus (log)

[Lateralus]

From Project: Forum Topic: The food TV show I'd like to see

Once again on eG we are trying to change what Food TV does.

In a sense, some changes are promising: There are remarks from their executives that they do not have all the answers and keep trying new things.

We need to agree: Their financial support is from advertising. Really, the business they are in is advertising. So, they need to attract an audience that will do well for their advertisers.

There is a big problem with TV advertising: For a program with an audience as narrow as is common on Food TV, an advertiser really does not have very good data on what good their advertising expenditure does. Or, the situation is likely as it has long been: The advertisers know that 50% of their ad budget is wasted; they just don't know which 50%.

Google gets nearly all of their revenue from advertising and, thus, is also in the advertising business. Advantages of Google include (a) better ad targeting than TV and (b) better information on what ads did for the companies paying the money. That's part of why, financially, Google is doing so well and some old advertiser media efforts are declining.

But, I claim that the situation on Food TV should be much better than it is now, that Food TV is making some big mistakes.

I claim that US TV has a narrow culture and, thus, has content that is much more narrow than it should be. That is, in US TV, there is a relatively small group of people who, as executives, producers, and directors, control the content. Further, these people have nearly all had their careers in the same system and, thus, adopted essentially the same ideas.

This narrow culture has a very narrow foundation in very traditional TV and movies based essentially only on the techniques of formula fiction. The main goal is to grab the audience by the heart, the gut, or lower still, always below the shoulders, never between the ears, mostly by creating for the audience a vicarious escapist fantasy emotional experience (VEFEE), hopefully with passion, pathos, and poignancy, and the main technique for doing so is just drama.

Or, if the only tool a person has is a hammer, then they tend to see every problem as a nail. The narrow culture sees all the potential of TV only as different versions of VEFEE drama.

The influence of this narrow culture is so strong that, in practice, nearly anything that passes through a motion picture camera must be under the control of this narrow culture. Here is a telling example: Sometimes on late night PBS TV, I saw some programs on high school mathematics and physical science being broadcast so that teachers could record the material and play it in class. I have a solid background in mathematics and physical science, watched these programs, and was just horrified. No high school student trying to learn should ever watch those programs. The programs were mostly filled with fluff intended to be entertaining; for the actual content, it was far too often just wrong, incompetent. The content was just what one would expect from some movie people who had forgotten everything about mathematics and physical science above the fourth grade -- literally.

There was no reason at all to put movie people in charge of educational programming for high school students, but, since the programs did have to pass through motion picture cameras, and since the influence of the narrow culture was so strong, all the high school students got was worse on mathematics and physical science than I Love Lucy since at least Lucy didn't actually mislead anyone on mathematics or physical science.

Right: Intended to teach high school students mathematics and physical science but, in fact, worse than I Love Lucy -- literally. A serious source of rot in US culture.

Since the narrow culture controls even programs on mathematics and physical science for high school students, there is little hope for food and cooking.

Net, so far, in practice, in the US, if it passes through a motion picture camera, then nearly always it has to be from the I Love Lucy crowd. Yes, in Jurassic Park, Spielberg got the DNA science okay, but he is a rare exception.

News? The same. Food? The same. Sports? The same. Science? The same. That crowd has only a hammer and sees nearly everything as a nail. E.g., science programs are nearly never about the science but all about the drama that can be contrived -- geology becomes the violence of volcanoes, the weather becomes the threat of hurricanes, tornadoes, and global warming, ecology and nature become the rape of nature by evil humans, planetary motion becomes the risk of a "global killer" asteroid, rocket engineering becomes "Will they all be killed in a big explosion?", etc.

Endless, pointless, useless, worthless,

dra ra ra ra ra ra-ra ra ra-ra ma ma ma ma-ma ma-ma ma-ma

Sickening.

This situation of this narrow culture is unique in all the world. No other field is so consistently ignorant, oblivious, and incompetent in its content. If airplanes were designed like TV, then they would never get off the ground, but, if such airplanes ever did get off the ground, then that would be a very bad thing. If medical doctors were trained with content like on TV, then no one would go to a hospital no matter how bad the pain. If bridges were designed as on TV, then no one would risk driving across. Highways would fall into canyons; electrical systems would go snap, crackle, and pop; bad food would kill millions of people a year; cars would rarely start, rarely reach their destinations, and fall to pieces spontaneously within a few months; on and on throughout our civilization.

For the US educational system, TV drops out somewhere in the fifth grade and gives up on anything more advanced, except for mathematics at the second grade or lower except for sex usually somewhere in high school.

In particular, the assumption of the narrow culture that the audience is all below the fifth grade level is just that narrow culture looking at themselves and in wildly strong contradiction to the simple fact that nearly everyone else functioning in our society is far above the fourth grade.

Yes, TV wants an audience that dribbles, drools, and drips, has throbbing heart, boiling gut, pulsating groin, and a hard vacuum between the ears, sucks up silly products like a giant street vacuum cleaner, and is awash in money and eager to spend it. Hmm ....

For those TV programs on high school mathematics, there was one exception: I got into the middle, of a program on plane geometry, quickly noticed some rare excellence, eagerly watched to the end to see the credits. I did notice a lion by his paw: The main contributor was A. Gleason, long in mathematics at Harvard, with some help from T. Apostol, long in mathematics at Cal Tech. Any high school student interested in plane geometry should rush to see that program and watch it several times. It was excellent, even beautiful, elegant, polished, both simple and powerful, good fun, kept me right on the front of my chair. A crown jewel of civilization. Wonder what Gleason had to do with the TV narrow culture to keep them from ruining his program!

What passes through a motion picture camera really can be terrific stuff. Expensive? Not necessarily. One necessary condition is to make absolutely positively totally certain that no one from the narrow culture of old US TV and movies has any role at all in the effort -- maybe an exception for Spielberg.

Actually, there is some science programming from England that is okay. Curiously, the world center of drama is better at good content on science than the US which ruins science programming with low grade drama.

The problem with US TV, then, is just that narrow culture that somehow has a stranglehold on everything that passes through a motion picture camera.

My guess for the reason is intellectual laziness: It takes a little thought to see clearly (A) what is wrong with the old narrow culture and (B) in particular cases, something better. So, in practice, it is just so much easier to pass projects to that narrow culture and forget about it than to buck that system and create a new path. Easy, yes, but it also promises to be increasingly costly; it cannot last.

So, TV slowly goes downhill. Eventually, when parts of TV reach bottom, maybe there will start to be some changes, some real content instead of just more brain-dead, below fifth grade, I Love Lucy, VEFEE, formula fiction drama.

For food, maybe eventually Food TV will start to consider that it is possible to have programs that are mostly about food.

But, at the Web site of Food TV, we can see

Food Network (www.foodnetwork.com) is a unique lifestyle network and website that strives to surprise and engage its viewers with likable hosts, personalities, and the variety of things they do with food.

While I am interested in food and many things, I have no idea why I would ever want to watch anything like what is described here. I don't care about lifestyle, I don't really want to be surprised or engaged, I have no interest in the "hosts" being "likable" or "personalities". Absurd. Worthless. Nonsense. For me, totally irrelevant, useless, waste of time.

I don't get anything from it; it's a half hour or an hour of my time, and I leave with nothing to show for that time. I learn nothing useful, and instead of entertaining it's infuriating. Advertisers, take note.

So, I shouldn't watch it. And mostly I don't. Occasionally I can watch some of Alton Brown, look past all the weird camera angles and efforts at novelty and humor and concentrate on the information he has. Sometimes he does have some okay information although too often when he covers something I do know about his information is a bit weak.

Food TV has some awesomely good expertise in cooking, but the narrow culture wins out and makes sure that essentially all the value of the expertise is ruined.

Apparently the narrow culture is so brain-dead that they are unable in their own minds to see the value in anything except their VEFEE drama and much of anything beyond the fourth grade. So, that narrow culture is just oblivious to everything else that might be on TV. They are like deaf people at an orchestra concert, blind people at an art gallery, or some naughty fourth grade boy in a high school course. Except for variations on their old VEFEE drama, they just don't get it.

There is a really good reason US TV was called "the great wasteland".

For what Food TV should do? First, they should do the same thing nearly all the rest of TV should do: Kick out the old, brain-dead, narrow culture. Next they should wake up, look around, and see the rest of civilization and notice that there is enormous variety and content there.

In particular, and totally beyond the understanding of the brain-dead, narrow culture, there is a very long list of reasons people would want to watch something on TV; some of these reasons are above the fourth grade and above the shoulders.

For me, in food, near the top of the list is instructional material so that I can be a better cook, with my hands, in my kitchen, for my table. To me, this is a big thing. Getting VEFEE drama instead of such instruction is sickening, something I deeply, profoundly, bitterly, resent, hate, and despise, something I very much wish I never see again; I feel used, insulted, deceived, lied to, manipulated -- advertisers, take note. I'm not pleased or entertained; I am TORQUED.

Yes, the narrow culture will roll their incompetent eyes, believing that anything at all instructional has to be boring, tendentious, pedantic, insulting, pompous, pretentious, offensive, etc. Well, to the brain-dead narrow culture and how little they know, such will have to be their conclusions. But, these conclusions are all totally false. And, the solution is not rock bands, fast-cut video editing, haw-haw, he-he, beauty queens, cleavages, or more from I Love Lucy. There is nothing, nothing at all, wrong with learning something, especially something one could use. Sure, too many producers, in the VEFEE they wanted to create, wanted to use pretense, pomposity, etc., but that garbage was just more sick, useless, worthless, pointless VEFEE.

I do complain to my cable TV company and at each opportunity tell them that their Internet service is terrific, their telephone service is okay, but nearly all the content on their cable TV is just awful. When video on the Internet gets a little better, I will drop cable TV service -- I'm looking forward to it. TV really is a "great wasteland", and I hate it. Advertisers take note.

E.g., for the most recent Super Bowl, I watched one play. They wouldn't let me see the details of the pass defense at which time I concluded that their coverage was worthless and clicked away and never returned. But, on the Internet, I did watch all the ads. They were much better than the game.

I kid you not: I HATE nearly all of TV, yes, including Food TV. And I watch very little of it. Advertisers take note: You are nearly always paying for junk, and I HATE it.

I'm not against all of drama; while nearly always I would prefer something informative, a little drama occasionally is okay. But, there is a lot of drama already recorded. Actually, it does appear that the movies made between about 1935 and 1955, from only 21 years and including several years of the Depression and several years of WWII, still are about the best drama anyone knows how to do. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) transmits some of the best 24 hours a day. I have a personal collection of old movies, e.g., all the old Rathbone-Bruce Holmes. I've got plenty of drama.

My guess is that nothing will change Food TV, the rest of TV, the narrow culture, or their stranglehold on TV. Typically that is what happens with ossified cultures; they don't change; instead, they just die off. Eventually from some other quite different sources there will be some good content of much greater variety on video, and the old narrow culture and their stranglehold and work will just be set aside. Maybe we can get them jobs dusting camera lenses or mopping the floor from food spills -- finally something somewhat useful.

My guess is that the Internet will be the big change. Generally, the Internet is putting some severe financial pressures on old media.

In particular, anyone with a digital video camera, personal computer with some video editing software, a good Internet connection, and some good ideas for video content can develop such content and upload it to some video hosting sites that will pay based on number of views. When enough people notice that there is some money to be made here, then we will get a river of new content, some of which will be quite good, and very little of which will be from the old narrow culture.

And we will get some means to find the content we like (working on it!).

In the meanwhile, I can watch some America's Test Kitchen, Rick Steves, Burt Wolfe, BBC science programs, old Rathbone-Bruce Holmes, or, better yet, get some videos of lectures from Princeton, Xerox PARC, Kavli, etc. The lectures on asymptotic freedom and the strong force were terrific. Given that Intel is promising processors with 80 cores each, it was good to see what Microsoft is doing about concurrency. It was good to see what Google's P. Norvig is doing in machine processing of English. So far, for cooking, the situation is poor.

I'm interested in food but am rarely willing to watch anything on it at all on Food TV. This post has been edited by project: Yesterday, 02:25 PM

--------------------

What would be the right food and wine to go with

R. Strauss's 'Ein Heldenleben'?

agbaber Yesterday, 05:20 PM Post #23

participating member

Posts: 202

Joined: 29-February 04

From: Atlanta / Boston

Member No.: 15,898

project -- that was one of the most thoughtful, well written, and most importantly honest assessments of foodtv (and tv in general) that I have ever read.

This was very intesting!

Edited February 13, 2007 by Lateralus (log)

[project]

Here is some food TV I would like to see:

<br><br>

Tomatoes. I would like to know more about tomatoes. Could do

shows on

<blockquote>

<OL>

<LI>

<b>Seeds and Varieties.</b> So, start with the botany,

university researchers, and seed companies and

explain the history of tomatoes and what we have

now. Emphasize current accomplishments,

opportunities, and challenges.

<LI>

<b>Home Growers.</b> How people can and do grow tomatoes at

home. Cover backyard gardens, window box efforts,

and greenhouse efforts, north, south, east, and

west. Emphasize varieties, dates, temperatures,

growing conditions, handling diseases, insects, and

predators, rates of growth, and results in texture,

flavor, sugar content, acid content, color, etc.

<LI>

<b>Farm Growers.</b> Cover how tomatoes are grown on farms

for sale. Emphasize locations, economics, varieties, dates,

temperatures, growing conditions, handling diseases and

insects, rates of growth, harvesting, distribution, and

results in texture, flavor, sugar content, acid content,

color, etc. Cover fresh and processed.

<LI>

<b>Processed Tomatoes.</b> Cover canned peeled tomatoes,

peeled and crushed, sauces, paste, sun dried, etc. Emphasize

varieties, growing, harvesting, processing, and results.

<LI>

<b>Using, Fresh.</b> Cover how to use fresh tomatoes, home

raised and farm raised. Include recipes with good details

with times, temperatures, weights, volumes, of ingredients,

results with flavor and appearance.

<LI>

<b>Using, Processed.</b> Cover how to use processed tomatoes.

Include recipes with good details with times, temperatures,

weights, volumes, brand names of ingredients, results with

flavor and appearance.

</UL>

</blockquote>

So, that's six shows just on tomatoes. If include quite a lot

of detail, then the shows can be packed and fast moving.

<br><br>

In each show, be sure to include both

<br>

<UL>

<LI>

General information to provide overview and set context.

<LI>

Specific information the audience would like to know and

possibly could use.

</UL>

That's just tomatoes. Could do something similar for

essentially all of the top 200 ingredients. Now we are up to

1200 shows.

<br><br>

For more, do desserts:

<UL>

<LI>

American Home Standards.

<LI>

Classics from Vienna.

<LI>

Classics from France.

<LI>

Classics from Italy.

<LI>

Classics from Germany, the Baltic, and Hungary.

</UL>

As for desserts, could also do sausages, stews, roasts,

braises, stocks and sauces.

<br><br>

So far have just mentioned some obvious basics about food and

cooking. List the rest and get many more shows. Could dust

off 10,000 shows this way.

<br><br>

But, what is just <b>crucial</b> is not the list of topics but

what the shows <b>really do</b> for the viewers. The views

just <b>must</b> come away from each show with something they

would value in their own lives, enough to return for the next

show and the next.

<br><br>

Then, what is crucial is the <b>content</b> of each of the

shows.

The rock solid foundation of such content is solid information

people can trust, want to know, and can use.

<br><br>

This content is definitely not the usual TV entertainment or

drama.

Since TV, "the great wasteland", has essentially just

different versions of drama and essentially no content, it

really does appear that the old TV crowd has had no contact

with content, doesn't understand it, doesn't want it, can't

evaluate it, can't generate it, and, net, can't make a success

out of the proposal here.

That old TV crowd would take a program on desserts from

Vienna and say "It's been done before, many times and was

boring." It hasn't been done before with significant

<b>content.</b>

If that TV crowd did such a program anyway, then they would

just try to have drama in Vienna, and the results would not

compete with other drama in Vienna, e.g., the movie <i>The

Third Man.</i>

<br><br>

Other areas of our society, however, from universities to

government and industry, and, in particular, the food

industry, are just awash in people who understand content very

well.

Thus, there are plenty of people both to generate such shows

and to watch them.

[Vadouvan]

PROJECT....have you watched Gourmet's diary of a foodie on PBS ?

Let me use an analogy that may piss off some people to address your question.

The "DRUG" problem is society isnt just an issue of "DRUG DEALERS".

It's also an issue of "DRUG USERS" and the underlying reasons they need "DRUGS".

As much as you all take food network to task, they are simply giving America what it wants, that is "the majority of America". You also need to address the issues of "celebrity" chefs selling thier souls to anyone who show's up with a pile of cash be it the Food Network or a Vegas Casino or a licensing deal for useless cookware or overpriced garbage in a can or jar.

That to me is at least half the problem.

I *agree* with you the content is banal, I agree about the target audience projection from the other thread but housewives 30-60 have so much more to worry about than the phenolic content of the olive oil that Rachel Ray is using. You wake up at 6am, make breakfast, send off the kids to school, go to work or do laundry and other administrative domestic chores, watch oprah, get dinner ready, after school programs, put them to bed, be a wife to the husband and repeat the process for 12 to 18 years.......

I think ultimately while the food network does (for the most part) suck, we here on e gullet who collectively may be the most knowledgeable about food and ingredients as a community may be taking our passions a bit too far by expecting the rest of society to exercise interest with the level of passion or integrity with which we do.

Food Network is as much about food...as TLC or the PBS shows are about convincing you to actually build you own house from scratch. Television has always been an entertainment medium and will contimue to be.

They create personalities, they sell products, thats it.

Is there capacity for change ?

Yes but they also seem to have a distinct lack of vision probably because the maverick who develops new programming with content of higher integrity and accuracy will be on the chopping block when the ratings come in during sweeps period.

That the problem with the food network.....

Nobody wants to rock the boat.

They have an ivory tower in the meat packing district for christ's sake.

The other point is information acqusition is in a transitional stage and TV is not nearly in front and will comtinue to fall behind, internet searches are.

One can simple google "Tomato Varieties" and find out immediately.

It seems to me that those of us who already know the answers want to make it requisite for others to take our passions seriously.

That is not a crisis of food in America.

That is a crisis of the influence of the media and mass marketing on the baseline intelligence of society.

[JohnL]

Lateralus,

You sound a bit like Sgt Friday from the popular TV program "Dragnet" who spoke in a rapid fire monotone--"just the facts m'am just the facts."

TV is first and foremost an entertainment medium. The quality of American TV IMOP is no better or worse, for the most part, than TV anywhere else in the world. In your noting our "narrow culture" I would refer you to Benny Hill, and myriad European efforts involving sex and nudity. (ah but they are so sophisticated over there) especially a Russian effort wherein the nightly news is offered by nude women.

By the way, have you checked out Japanese TV some seriously gnarly programming there!

Turns out that in reality the Europeans (and the rest of the world) love their entertainment as much as we do--it ain't all "Upstairs Downstairs."

As for the Food Network. I am not sure why it doesn't seem to sink in with some folks that the Food Network is not really about food. It is entertainment involving lifestyles with some food thrown in. Will that eightfoot spun sugar rendering of the Eiffle Tower fall over before the judges have at it? Will Alton Brown run into a real motor cycle gang out there in search of authentic barbeque? Will Morimoto prevail? And can Bobby Flay smackdown yet another amateur? Can Ms Ray get those nachos done in time for her superbowl party?--now that's entertainment!

We need to stop agonizing over its lack of "purity" It is aimed at people who do not obsess over the origin of their shad roe or foie gras or whether or not an obscure Gewurtztraminer made from a vinyard in Alsace will match up with the

harpooned swordfish with black summer truffles and .....

For the truly serious folks, like us, there's plenty of programming on any of several cable networks and PBS. Programs where serious and authentic chefs cook serious food and look serious doing it!

I don't mean to be too serious though. Seriously, for people who enjoy talking about brix levels in the Willmette Valley or acid levels in the Rheingau there are serious journals. For the rest of the world there is the Wine Spectator.

I also would argue that information disemination and teaching and knowledge and learning are better served by serious people who are also entertaining! Remember, when you get down to it, Shakespeare wrote potboilers for the common man.

So can we please leave the TV Food Network alone. They are what they are. Live and let live I say. Now let's see--do I watch Charlie Trotter on PBS? Or that Fawlty Towers retrospective (I love the scenes where Basil and Manuel go through their paces in the hotel dining room.......Hmmmmmmmmmm!

Edited February 22, 2007 by JohnL (log)

[arjay]

I have begun this post in curiosity of what chefs, food bloggers, egulleter's think about the progress of the chef/ restaurant industry portrayed on food network programming....from a show variety stand point, to its target aduience, personalities, etc.... to other programms on other stations(Bravo: Top Chef, Fine Living: Made to Order/ Opening Soon, Follow that Food, Travel Channel: Taste America, etc....?)

I have an idea that I will explain in posts to follow.  And I welcome opinions and comments of this idea.

←

Wha'd he say? Was it about food? The Food Network? What?

rj

[handmc]

I don't understand the complaining.

PBS a viewer supported medium produces, for the most part, a top quality product related cooking and food.

Food Network a commerical network drive by adversting revenue produces swill remotely relating to food, which is intended to provide entertainment not enlightenment.

Complaining about the quality of food network programing is pointless. You might as well complain about the why the Weekly World News is not on par with the New York Times.

[Toliver]

I don't understand the complaining.

PBS a viewer supported medium produces, for the most part, a top quality product related cooking and food.

Food Network a commerical network drive by adversting revenue produces swill remotely relating to food, which is intended to provide entertainment not enlightenment.

Complaining about the quality of food network programing is pointless. You might as well complain about the why the Weekly World News is not on par with the New York Times.

←

I disagree. It is what you make it, whether it's produced for PBS, HBO, or other commercially driven television networks. Unfortunately, FoodTV just doesn't seem to want to make it well. They're constantly repackaging present products/people in the hope of stumbling across another hit that will hold the old audience and bring new viewers in. Restaurants repackage all the time ("We've got too much ground beef...let's come up with some new dishes that will use what we already have on hand."). It keeps costs low.

FoodTV actually was enlightening back in the early days. That's why we complain so much about it. It's about the squandering of the potential opportunity to be something more than they are and we're constantly disappointed because they aren't.

We used to be their target audience. We aren't anymore. It's too bad they don't realize that their programming doesn't have to aim at just one audience.

And while we're complaining, has anyone else noticed how "white" their programming is these days? Where are the chefs of color? Don't they cook anymore? Or is that not the audience they want?

[handmc]

FoodTV actually was enlightening back in the early days.  That's why we complain so much about it.  It's about the squandering of the potential opportunity to be something more than they are and we're constantly disappointed because they aren't.

We used to be their target audience. We aren't anymore. It's too bad they don't realize that their programming doesn't have to aim at just one audience.

And while we're complaining, has anyone else noticed how "white" their programming is these days?  Where are the chefs of color? Don't they cook anymore?  Or is that not the audience they want? 

←

It was enlightening and interesting tv. They certainly threw that away. I never really thought of thier "white" programming until you mentioned it. Sadly with the exception of Disney and Bravo you don't see much of a mix.