Good on Corus.  They out marketed Rogers at least initially on these two channels and so far seem to be getting the benefits.  As the article says, Food Network has too many competition and old food game shows and way too much Bobby Flay who is past his best before date. 

Mike Bendixen talking about Flavour on a weekend show is fine by me.  New fans of the station or foodies will find it interesting.  Jimmy Fallon is always yammering about new shows on Peacock with a guest to plug the show for the NBC streamer.  Same with Colbert and Paramount+.

 

Last edited by paterson1 (January 27, 2025 9:16 am)

RadioActive wrote:

You can't blame viewers for being confused. Corus started "Flavour" once it lost the more established "Food Network" to Rogers. The same thing happened with "Home" when "HGTV" was flipped to Big Red. 

So who's winning the early battle? According to TV scribe Bill Brioux, early returns are showing some surprises. 

Food fight II: fresh data shows viewers still crave Corus brands

Speaking of Flavour, AM640 head honcho Mike Bendixen wound up on the station Sunday doing a one hour talk show about Flavour, featuring some of the new channel's personalities. A one-off or a regular show? I guess we'll find out next week, but it's interesting that they did what amounts to an infomercial for one of their own properties. 

As a long-time 'Diners Drive-Ins and Dives' addict (not in recovery), the 'Flavour Channel' is crap.  We're on Bell Fibe, so now all I can get is 15 year old reruns of 'You Gotta Eat Here', which I've seen 10 times, and pales badly in
comparison.  How many times can one hear Catucci proclaim meat 'So tender!'?
 

I think Corus is benefiting mostly from placement. The new Food and HGTV are net add stations for systems and from what I can tell, many have not bothered to add them. Instead they have let things be. So where Food was on your dial, well now it is Flavour. HGTV --> Home
Shaw Direct has added all the new Rogers while keeping all the Corus ones

Last edited by andysradio (January 27, 2025 3:54 pm)

Many are simply using IPTV services (illegal or not) to access Food Network...most likely the USA version, but still...

Scarboroughbluffsradiof99 wrote:

Radiowiz wrote:

Many are simply using IPTV services (illegal or not) to access Food Network...most likely the USA version, but still...

The new IPTV's are like the sat dishes of the 2000s.
I remember the amount of music channels on the direct tv dish.
I was not told if they were galaxie or max trax and I was to young to pay atention to the channel ids.

IPTV today is a lot better than what the sat dishes of 2000's ever could be. Plus the freedom to live in an apartment or home where using a dish is not allowed, IPTV solved that problem.

As touched upon by a few other commenters, this isn't exactly a fair comparison. Other than OLN -> Bravo (which isn't included here despite that being another Corus v. Rogers fight), the Rogers channels aren't rebrands of existing services that have long-established distribution across Canadian pay-TV systems. If you aren't a Rogers/Shaw subscriber, it's not guaranteed your provider even carries these new channels. 

This also borders on a pyrrhic victory given the state of Corus' finances and the overall health of linear television.