Cooking shows are dead… long live cooking shows

From laid-back ‘chop and chat’ shows like Saturday Kitchen to intense culinary contests such as MasterChef, cooking shows have been a staple of Britain’s TV diet for decades.

As well as launching the careers of everyone from Jamie Oliver to Nadiya Hussain, Britain’s seemingly insatiable appetite for these shows has also – through sponsorship and advertising opportunities – provided food brands and retailers with an effective way to reach the nation’s aspiring foodies.

However, amid a string of high-profile scandals, there are signs the cooking show could be going off the boil. Just 12 new shows have been commissioned this year, data from Broadcast Intelligence reveals, down from 42 last year and a high of 100 in 2019.

Meanwhile, social media is drawing audiences away from traditional TV food programming. Three-quarters of Gen Z look to social media for recipe inspiration, found a survey by Publicis Commerce. Food and beverage content is now the fourth-largest category on YouTube, growing 32% year-over-year [Pixability].

So, what does this changing landscape mean for brands and retailers? How and why are suppliers capitalising on online food content and creators? What are the potential pitfalls? And is TV advertising still an effective way for brands to reach shoppers – or should it be consigned to the food waste bin?

“Advertising is a competitive necessity for supermarkets and fmcg brands, and TV remains the bedrock of this,” says Lindsey Clay, CEO of commercial TV marketing body Thinkbox. “There’s much noise about social and influencers, but they can’t come close to the reach, trust, effectiveness, and cultural pull of TV.”

That reach was highlighted when Sainsbury’s began sponsoring the Great British Bake Off in 2022. Channel 4 said the previous series had attracted 8.8 million viewers per episode, rising to 9.3 million for the finale.

But the popularity of big TV cooking shows appears to be waning. Take MasterChef. If it wasn’t funded by the BBC, and therefore sponsorship-free, viewing figures may be giving advertisers pause for thought.

Following a reboot in 2012, the show’s opening episode brought in 4.8 million viewers. That figure dropped to 2.7 million in last year’s series. The current series opener, which followed the sacking of hosts Gregg Wallace and John Torode after an investigation into allegations of misconduct, drew just shy of two million viewers, according to the BBC.

MasterChef isn’t alone in facing scandal. In February, ITV dropped all forthcoming shows starring Gino D’Acampo after allegations of inappropriate behaviour spanning 12 years. In the midst of something akin to a foodie #MeToo moment, it’s perhaps unsurprising producers are reluctant to commission new shows fronted by potentially problematic presenters.

However, a bigger shift in the food content landscape has come from the rise of short-form video. Chef-turned-content-creator Ben Lippett believes it is fast taking over from TV.

“The way people engage with [cooking] content and advertising is changing,” he says. “All the eyeballs are off the TV and on the phone screen.” For him, channels like YouTube are the way for brands “to reach a new audience engaged in food content”.

A turning point came when Instagram decided to prioritise 30-second vertical video via its algorithm in 2021, when the pandemic was still keeping people indoors, Lippett says. That – alongside the rise of Chinese rival TikTok – unleashed “a sheer tidal wave” of food and cooking content online.

“It [vertical video] had everyone in a chokehold,” he says. “In the age of convenience, everyone has a 10-second attention span. That translates to so many different industries but especially food. You can just sit down and scroll through it; it’s not like sitting down to watch an hour-long Jamie Oliver programme.”

YouTube accounts like Bosh have blown up thanks to this trend, with recipes for everything from ‘healthy’ sushi cakes to a watermelon ‘Jägerbomb punch’.

Online accounts like Mob – the student cooking platform launched in 2016 – led the way in turning that engagement into revenue. Having amassed a huge following with snappy, engaging cooking videos, Mob began to partner with the likes of Knorr, Quaker Oats and Aldi, showcasing their products in its recipes and videos. Others soon followed. Before long, everyone from burgeoning creators like Lippett to celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson was featuring sponsored content on their social channels.

“I like to support and work with brands that align with what I do, and smaller brands that I’m into,” says Lippett. “But at the end of the day, I’ve got to pay the rent. If somebody comes along and you vibe with the brand and the deal’s right, then you go for it.”

It’s easy to see the appeal for brands and retailers. Sponsored content gives creators “the ability to speak authentically and present content in their own style”, resulting in content that builds “trust and credibility”, says Hannah Miller, marketing manager at Waitrose.

Given two-thirds of millennials buy food directly through social media, according to Greenpark, the ability of creators to “link to the exact products they’re promoting” is also crucial in giving would-be shoppers a “seamless experience”, Miller adds.

Working with influencers

That insight is informing Waitrose’s marketing strategy. While the retailer continues to invest in linear TV advertising – it has sponsored GBBO since last March – it also works with a host of influencers including Will Hughes, Sam Way and Remi Idowu.

Italian tomato brand Mutti is another business to identify online food content as a “strategic priority”. It’s partnered with creators including Francesco Mattana, Emily English, Sam Way and Gabriella Margiotta.

“We see online chefs and food influencers as a vital way to connect with aspiring foodies and engage our community beyond traditional advertising,” says Mutti director for UK & Ireland Dhiresh Hirani. “By collaborating with trusted chefs and influencers, we showcase our range, while social media provides real-time feedback.”

Another key attraction, Miller points out, is the sheer variety of creators online. The abundance means brands and retailers can “find partners that resonate really well with specific campaigns”.

“If we’re running a campaign focusing on animal welfare, we can work specifically with influencers who’ve already built a solid audience around this. On the flipside, if we’re landing a light-hearted brand campaign, we can look at relevant partners who can help share and amplify the message in their own humorous way.”

Then there’s the cost. Linear TV advertising remains eye-wateringly expensive and out of reach for many smaller brands. Not only do they have to pay for the cost of the slot – a 30-second spot on ITV can cost £3,000 to 5,000 during the daytime and more than double at peak times, according to ad agency Toast TV – but they also need to hire a production company to make their ad. Longer-term sponsorships, such as that between Waitrose and GBBO, will be more expensive still – running into the millions, according to some.

By contrast, partnering with influencers can be much more affordable, says Rosie Taylor, associate director at consumer agency Instinct PR. Sponsored posts can start from as little as “a couple of hundred pounds” she says – though creators with larger audiences will charge larger sums. Plus, outsourcing creation to influencers can help “take some of the weight off” in-house marketing teams, resulting in professional-looking content with a variety of uses, she adds.

There’s usually a range of options to suit all budgets. “Certain brands may opt for year-long partnerships with creators where they get a piece of content drop with them every month,” says Taylor. “They might also promote said content via other avenues like their newsletters.” But, “every time you add another deliverable, that’s going to add on zeros”.

While it may be tempting to opt for the creator with the largest audience, a “big following does not always equate to a big result”, Taylor cautions. In fact, “niche influencers who are known for specific things can have really switched-on audiences”.

Her advice highlights another important lesson. Given the wealth of online creators out there, brands need to do stringent research to find the right partner. Especially when creator partnerships give brands less control over the finished output than TV ads.

“On some occasions, the messaging or values of someone we’re collaborating with have changed and become less aligned to ours – for example, we’ve discovered they’re less committed to using organic food than we thought,” says Carmen Ferguson, brand manager at Biona supplier Windmill Organics. “This then becomes a mismatch and no longer appropriate.

“Another potential pitfall is that we’re not in control of who else they work with. So, if they also team up with a direct competitor, it could weaken the partnership with us and make it less authentic to the audience.”

To ensure successful and mutually beneficial collaborations, Taylor recommends brands start small and adopt a “test and learn” approach.

“We would rarely offer a partnership to somebody who we haven’t ever engaged with or put the brand in front of in the past,” she says. “I would advise starting small with people who seem responsive and reliable. ”

Once brands have identified and engaged the creators they want to work with, it’s important they’re clear about what they want the content to be. “Usually there would be a brief provided,” says Taylor. “I find the best briefs are short and clear, otherwise it can feel like you’re just telling the creator what to do – in which case, why are you hiring them to do it in the first place?”

Mutti is one brand giving content creators relatively free rein. “We brief our ambassadors on the broader campaign, so they understand how their content fits within our wider marketing objectives,” says Hirani. “Beyond that, we don’t script posts or impose rigid conditions. Creators have full freedom to produce content in their own style.”

New and old media

The popularity of such content has spurred on traditional media companies and broadcasters to explore new channels. Earlier this year, Channel 4 launched Served, a food & drink channel on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. The content is produced in partnership with five creator chefs and has amassed over 20 million views since launch in May.

Served isn’t about Channel 4 “replacing one media channel with another”, but reflects the broadcaster adopting “a more 360 approach” to content, according to Jodie Miles, senior lead for social branded entertainment at Channel 4 sales. It has also allowed for experimentation with branded content on social media. Wine retailer Laithwaites is the first headline sponsor.

“We developed a series where a wine expert challenged a creator chef to make a variety of meals inspired by a different Laithwaites wine each episode,” says Miles. “It could be inspired by a region, taste, or even the name of a wine, and viewers got to see the process of the meal being made before the creators tucked in.”

To ensure consistency, sponsored episodes are staggered between non-brand funded content on Served’s social channels, Miles explains. The content is performing “extremely well, with about 5.5 million delivered views, and one sponsored reel alone receiving over 1,000 saves on Instagram”, she adds.

However, under the terms of the deal, Laithwaites also sponsors Channel 4’s food content on linear TV. Idents appear during shows such as Come Dine with Me, Jamie’s Recipes, and Kitchen Nightmares.

Combined, the broadcaster’s 15 TV channels reach an estimated 39 million people per month – a figure any piece of sponsored content online would be hard-pressed to match.

That broad approach is also being adopted by many brands. Mutti, for example, launched its ‘Deceptively Simple’ campaign across TV, VOD and YouTube this year, on top of its work with influencers.

TV advertising and social media are “complementary, not competing”, says Hirani. “TV builds broad awareness and reinforces our aspiration to achieve market leadership in the ambient tomato category, while social media allows us to engage more intimately with audiences and inspire everyday cooking.”

Waitrose has adopted a similar “blended” approach, “We’re confident that our social content creators will continue to have a prominent role in being advocates of our brand,” Miller says. “At the same time, we will continue to look for opportunities to grow our presence across traditional media,” she adds.

Such a strategy makes sense for brands that can afford it. Because even if viewing figures are falling, TV advertising can still be hugely effective. A study by Thinkbox in 2024 found TV accounted for 75.7% of advertising-generated fmcg profit, compared with just 9.2% for paid social.

That’s partly because influencer-led campaigns are “often overhyped by global follower numbers that mask patchy local footprints”, according to Thinkbox’s Clay.

“A creator with two million followers may look impressive, but their audiences are likely scattered and culturally mismatched,” she says. “A locally relevant TV audience of 500,000 is far more powerful.”

So ultimately, food brands probably need fingers in both pies. Miles says the question is to think about “what suits the brand” – from brand-funded digital content and social media posts to TV sponsorship – and create a plan accordingly. With that in mind, her final message is a upbeat one: “The future of food content is positive and here to stay.”