Putting Bam! On The Back Burner
Melinda Peer, 05.21.08, 11:30 AM ET
Source: Forbes
Too many cooks in The Food Network’s kitchen pushed
Emeril Lagasse to its sister network, Fine Living, the host of
Emeril Live! said Tuesday.
Ratings for the explosive chef, known for catchphrases like "Bam!" and "kick it up a notch," have been simmering lately as the network’s crowded line-up of telegenic chefs and suspense-filled cooking challenges like
Iron Chef and
Dinner Impossible have made it more difficult for instruction-driven cooking shows to attract viewers.
"As you know in television, things have to evolve and this is a little evolution for me," Lagasse was quoted by
The Associated Press as saying.
Last year, Emeril lost his primetime slot for the first time since debuting on the network in 1997. According to Nielson Media Research, the show lost about 140,000 viewers in the past year.
Both Fine Living and The Food Network are majority owned by Scripps Network, which spun off from
The E.W. Scripps Company (nyse:
SSP -
news -
people ) last October to better develop its cable operations and online shopping networks (See:
Scripps Separates).
Fine Living lacks the audience base and star power that The Food Network has, but Emeril hopes the move, where he’ll share the limelight with Martha Stewart, will allow him to reach new viewers.
The two celebrities are already aligned. On Feb. 19,
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (nyse:
MSO -
news -
people ) bought Emeril’s line of kitchen utensils, cookbooks and television shows (See:
Martha And Emeril: Cozy In The Kitchen).
Starting July 7, Fine Living will air
Emeril Live! at 7 p.m., seven nights a week, and reruns of the show will be broadcast on The Food Network in the afternoon.
Emeril began his career in a Portuguese bakery where he cooked his way to a culinary doctorate, before opening his own restaurant in
New Orleans.
The TV chef's latest move dices his baseline audience: Fine Living is carried by roughly 40 million fewer households with televisions, than The Food Network, and the overshadowed network is counting on Emeril and Martha Stewart to change that.
“It’s really what I consider to be a network-defining moment for us,” said Bob Baskerville, the president of Fine Living.
Nielsen Media Research is slated to begin rating the Fine Living network this fall.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
