Interesting piece in The New York Post today about HGTV and The Food Network losing their core female fans, particularly in prime time.
I speak for no one but myself, but HGTV mostly lost me when so much of their programming went from decorating to home buying. Give me some Color Splash, baby. Keep your House Hunters. I want to see creativity, a nice before-and-after. It’s like therapy.
As for The Food Network, I want to watch compelling people cook. I don’t want to see competition of any kind except for Bobby Flay’s Throwdown. Keep Chopped and Iron Chef. I was a Food Network addict when it first hit and I have learned so much about cooking because of personalities like Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentiis and Rachael Ray.
The network understandably wanted to appeal to a broader audience (read: male) and went in another direction in prime time. Adding The Best Thing I Ever Ate was a great move, but by moving to so much competition-based programming, they were bound to lose women.
That’s my two cents.
