SBS launching food channel to capture younger female demographic and generate profits
Multicultural broadcaster SBS is to launch its own dedicated food channel which it says will be aimed at growing its reach in a younger female demographic in a bid to generate a commercial return.
SBS chief content officer Helen Kellie today told Mumbrella that the new channel, which will sit alongside SBS, SBS 2 and NITV, was aimed at building on the success of some of their other food properties.
“Food is commercially one of our most important genres,” said Kellie. “Both in terms of the ad sales revenue it generates but also we do programming sales in this space and it is one of our strongest returns on investment.”
Kellie
I think it’s a bit of a stereotype to target this channel at females. Guys make up a huge amount of the ‘foodie’ market.
Agreed.
Why make it about one gender.
Food is universal.
Good on them for giving it a go though.
TIL apparently only younger females like food.
Will SBS be commissioning new Australian content for this new food channel?
It’s not so much that SBS is sure that young women will view the channel, as that it is attempting to pursue an audience of young women because it thinks they have a high disposable income. Once the channel is up and running, SBS will then try to convince marketers to use it to address young females. Whether it will work is anybody’s guess.
Mr Ebeid’s full statement says that SBS needs to launch a food-only young-female-oriented channel in order to deal with the looming challenge of the fragmenting television audience. HIs solution appears to be… pre-emptive fragmentation.
Oh please. Just shut this lot down and give us back our taxes. I’m finding it hard to understand why we need SBS (who act like a fourth commercial channel) at a time when ad revenues are already challenged.
Maybe SBS should go back to where it came from… the past.