SBS's new food format The Chefs’ Line promises “real food, not reality food” without the back stabbing and bitchiness that has come to characterise other reality TV shows.
The show, which premiere's at 6pm on Monday, pits a team of home cooks against a team of professional chefs in a weekly cuisine cook off.
The series will be presented by SBS’s resident food expert Maeve O’Meara and judged by three of Australia’s hottest culinary stars, executive chef Dan Hong, renowned chef Mark Olive and leading food writer Melissa Leong.
At 65 episodes, it is the longest-run series the multicultural public broadcaster has ever commissioned.
SBS director of television and online content Marshall Head tells AdNews he believes the show's warmth and exploration into the many cuisines found in Australian will resonate with viewers.
“Our focus in food has always been on real food, not reality food It's incredibly warm and not about the personalities and back stabbing of reality TV,” he said.
“It's much more around the passion of home cooks, they're connection to family and generations of cooking and the chance for them to share that more broadly as part of their program."
Head explains that SBS programers have intentionally avoided the tried and tested reality TV trope of casting clashing personalities. He says the only conflict on the public broadcaster is on its news and current affairs programs around “important issues” rather than entertainment such as the recent series about racism in Australia.
“Some of the other reality TV shows have a very different reason for being – they're often not necessarily about much at all other than the theatre of conflict and I think people are genuinely tired of the theatre of conflict without something more important underlying it," he adds. "People are looking for a purpose.”
One of the key differences and strengths of the show is that it will tackle 13 different cuisines over 13 weeks, kicking off with a Vietnamese battle.
“The good thing about that is every week you refresh the home cooks, you've got a whole new restaurant and a new cuisine to explore. It keeps the show dynamic and from a SBS Charter respective, audiences can learn a lot about different cuisines and the cultures, people and history associated with them,” Head said.
The aim of the show is to build a following over time by reaching out to new audiences and provide a good platform to launch into SBS news at 6.30pm.
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