Nine’s final tent pole of the year, Family Food Fight, seems likely to go one of two ways. Either it will serve up another ratings hit that resonates with Australia’s multicultural society - or it could suffer from a dose of reality food fatigue.
Recent history proves that launching a new cooking format in this country is difficult with juggernauts My Kitchen Rules and Masterchef Australia ruling the roost for many years.
In the past two years, Seven’s Restaurant Revolution and Zumbo’s Just Deserts both flopped and last month Hell’s Kitchen Australia only managed 528,000 viewers in its finale.
Nine’s last attempt at a new food concept, The Hotplate, pulled solid audience figures hovering around the 800,000 to 900,000 mark in its first season, but was canned after Seven took Nine to court for plagiarism and both parties settled.
Nine’s head of content production and development Adrian Swift is confident Family Food Fight will be different and fills a gap in the market.
“There is a very clear bias in this show to family relationships and the food that they cook,” Swift says.
“There are no snow eggs, there are no floating firework cakes [as you’d find on MasterChef]. There’s also no Seafood King versus everyone else; it’s not about that. It’s not about the competition between the families, it’s about the relationships within the families – whether they are Lebanese Australians, like the Sharouks, or a very traditional Australian family like the Butlers.
“The ingredients you can buy at the supermarkets and it’s kind of the stuff you or I cook everyday except better…the competition element is really only the third or fourth most important bit.”
‘It’s about mamma’s secret recipe’
Family Food Fight’s concept is simple and endearing enough. The show, hosted and judged by Matt Moran, Anna Polyviou, Hayden Quinn and Tom Parker Bowles (pictured above), pits six families from different cultural backgrounds against one another for a $100,000 prize.
Swift says it’s a show he’s always wanted to make about mamma’s secret recipe. The contestants are set specific tasks, such as cooking a BBQ or a chicken dish, and apply their own cultural spin on it.
“You will see what an Australian BBQ versus a Greek BBQ versus a Lebanese BBQ looks like,” Swift continues. “They’re all burnt meat but in very different ways. “What will make it stick is that it is fascinating watching how the families got there.”
Swift says he would be happy if the show pulled ratings of 800,000 and 400,000 in key demos.
“The reason why we’ve put it at the end of the year is that this is a show about the food we eat as families over the Christmas holiday period. That’s what I’m hoping will speak to Australian audiences,” he adds.
“I think what they will love is the fun and the joy of the show. We are still a female skewing 25 to 54 network and I think it speaks perfectly to our audience.”
Nine has secured Woolworths, KFC and Simply Energy as sponsors of Family Food Fight in its inaugural season.
An interesting aspect of the show is how Nine has promoted it. In addition to traditional above the line marketing, Nine has spent about 10% of its promo budget on ethnic media advertising. This includes AM and FM radio, community and Christian radio, newspapers, outdoor, social and digital ads.
“This was an opportunity to do something we hadn’t done before, which was to talk directly to an ethnic audience and saying, ‘here are faces like yours on Australian television’,” Swift says.
“The response to this has been really strong; to the point where Sharouk girls are doing an appearance at Woolworths Lakemba before the show even launches.”
Family Food Fight begins on 30 October.
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