24Kitchen a Dutch digital TV channel on cooking has been on the air for less than a year, but it can already be called a success. Of the exclusively digital channels, the cooking channel has been the best watched station recently, doing better than 13th Street and Journaal24. Naturally Raymond van der Vliet, the general director of FOX International Channels Benelux, is extremely satisfied with its youngest addition, especially because he is also a big fan of eating and cooking.
"I regularly taste the food made by the big chefs. I try to visit local top restaurants when I am visiting foreign countries. I also cook at home," admits the Fox-top man. He continues to say that almost everything shown on 24Kitchen is made in his own house. Best estimates are around 90 percent. The most famous culinarian is Dutch master chef Rudolph van Veen, who has been exclusive to 24Kitchen since May. There are many other chefs to see, for example, Giovanni Caminita. Of course we also have Jamie Oliver's programme."
Van der Vliet stresses that 24Kitchen is all about healthy food. "That means no sachets and no packages. Freshly prepared meals, where we show the viewer that they can cook healthy and varied food quite simply. The preference is Dutch ingredients because our country is a large source of vegetables, fruit, fish and cheeses."
Rock star
The station has recently spread its international wings. "24Kitchen can be seen in Portugal and various countries in the Balkans. We have a window of two hours on another Fox channel. The programmes are dubbed. This means that in Portugal Rudolph suddenly speaks fluent Portuguese. He almost has the status of a rock star in Serbia," chuckles Van der Vliet. "We would like to introduce more local content in those countries. My colleagues in England, France, Poland, Germany and Scandinavian countries have made 24Kitchen one of their most important priorities. They are now busy with introducing the concept in their countries as soon as possible. This is an important step for FOX International Channels: it's the first time that we have developed a sender ourselves, instead of buying an existing station."24Kitchen (part of the digital package from Ziggo, UPC, Caiway and KPN) is more than just a tv-station. "We have video recipes, sell cookbooks, organise workshops on our website and are going to be hosting a large live event in October. Out of the 3500 available tickets, ten percent have already been sold without doing much advertising. Our free app has been downloaded 240.000 times. It has exceeded all of our expectations."
Source: Telegraaf