The Growth Of The American Food Network

By Scott Nelson


The AFN is a satellite and basic cable television channel that airs were cooking and food programs both in US and other countries in the world. The American Food Network was one of the earliest food systems formed and up to 2015 it had over 96 million viewers only in the US.

With its formation in the early 90s, it had its original name changed from the TV Food Network to their current name. There are two groups which own this channel; Scripps Network Interactive, which owns 70% and being responsible for managing the day to day activities of the channel and 30% by Tribune Cable Venture.

In ensuring that they tap the maximum out of their targeted audience, they opted to have two different categories of their programs. One is the Food Network in the Kitchen, which is only aired during the day that is directly related to foods and cooking. Also, there is the Night time show aired at night involving exceptional entertainment food related programs.

The programs aired are very exciting and captivating ensuring there is an increasing audience. There are a series of programs that aired during the day as mentioned earlier. They are hosted by chefs who have a good reputation for their kitchen skills. They usually showcase their cooking skills for different foreign recipes and even the various ways of preparing the most common meals.

Apart from learning of different recipes, there are programs which teach on local ingredients. Through these skilled chefs, the viewers are impacted with new skills of preparing their shared meals, which they have been eating for many parts of their lives, using different approaches hence making them more appetizing.

The viewers of their programs have been changing over the years with most of those watching them these days not interested in cooking the meals but because of their like for healthy foods. This is why the management opted to increase the number of other food-related programs which are aimed at entertainment and not cooking which are the ones aired at night.

One of these programs are the cooking competition programs. This is where different chefs have been selected for auditions and the game involve them being given special ingredients to use them in coming up with a good meal. There are there to vet them with the winner going away with a set grand prize after different levels of elimination.

Since the competition programs are the bestselling, their number has steadily been on the rise with 2 in 2005 to 16 in 2015. Programs like this, Star Guy, Guys Grocery Games just naming a few have continued to add more fans with time. This has increased the market for the channel hence increasing the annual profits that are made making it the most profitable channel.

This channel also airs reality shows related to food and cooking and also documentaries majoring the same theme. As though this is not enough, this television channel established a video game for their young fans known as Cook or Be Cooked directly related to cooking. There are also several sister channels that are related to Food America increasing their market and eventually their continued rise in the industry.




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