2 November 2011

THE DEATH OF FOOD TELEVISION SHOWS

You heard it here first. The decline, if not the death of food television, is imminent. It has run its course. Rick, Jamie, Nigella and our own Simon Gault and Al Brown are not completely washed up, but my guess is that there is not much more upside in television’s current obsession with food.

When TV One took the gamble and moved Masterchef Australia into the slot of beloved Coronation Street which has been running since my Warrington-born grandmother was a fan (she died in 1983) and both programmes lost viewers, one has to realise it’s all-over-clover. (Look at next week’s Listener programme listings. The folks at TV One still had not decided at the time of going to press just what to do once the Master Chef is over on Friday. The 4.55pm slot each day and some of the 7.30pm slots state, ”To be advised.” Yeah right!)

Tonight on the five minutes I tried to watch of the final week of the ultra competitive and showy Masterchef Australia I heard one of the final three contestants say, “I have never cooked Japanese before.” She’s vying for becoming a Master Chef? Really? With a book deal? This could be a newly minted celebrity? She can cook? Hello?

I am not alone in reaching this conclusion. I am a Facebook addict and even some of the most respected of my intelligent friends have posted statements like “I will never watch a fucking cooking show or read another cooking column again” ...and ”I will not watch that stuff.” Ouch! But true.

We have witnessed the Dance of the Desperates in the fading twilight. Gradually it is dawning on just not our nation, but the western world, that all this claptrap of cookery shows is there, just as in glossy food magazines, to create revenue through advertising and promotion. It may have been working for a couple of years but viewers are becoming wiser. The 27.25 hours of food TV scheduled for the coming week on One, Three and Prime will be very lucky to draw as many viewers as the past two years, (and that’s not counting chef and food writers’ appearances on the Good Morning show and Breakfast TV on One, or the 24-hour- 7- day-a-week Food TV channel which is mainly dedicated to Americans we will never meet.)

The problem as I see it is that it’s actually not about food but about the Cult of the Celebrity. It’s all about ‘me, me and me.’ Too bad that not one food presenter actually shows their food in a way that will inspire viewers to rush to the kitchen with new found knowledge. (Apologies to Rick Stein and Delia Smith whom I believe are great culinary teachers with down-to-earth simple fare, and Simon Gault and Nici Wickes who win my prize for genuinely nice, believable food personalities on NZ television.)

Too bad that Masterchef makes little kids cook like super-pastry-chef Adriano Zumbo with his years and years of experience getting to the top. Too bad that cookery books only sell if the author is a TV celebrity. And worst of all, too bad that trying to cook can make people squirm and cry. Cooking and the resulting food should be a joyous experience, not trumped up entertainment. Bring on the next Big Thing, pu-leeze.