Rachael Ray is going to serve up a huge platter of shows for A+E Networks.
A+E Networks has acquired a 50% equity stake in Ray’s Free Food Studios, which the TV personality and author formed last year with longtime collaborators Brian Flanagan, Anthony Amoia and Sean Lee of production house Intentional Content. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Salem Partners advised A+E in connection with the transaction.
As part of the new joint venture, A+E Networks ordered 278 new episodes of programming over the next two years from Free Food Studios, which will feature Ray and other talent. Those will air in A+E’s Home.Made.Nation lifestyle programming block, as well as on FYI and other platforms. The programming will be distributed globally by A+E Networks.
Ray and her partners started Free Food Studios last year, when her daytime talk show “Rachael Ray” came to an end after 17 seasons. She said she made the move to focus on producing and owning her own content, rather than just serve as a host, and to develop shows around up-and-coming epicurean talent.
For her daytime show, Ray said, her favorite part was all about the food — “real people and cooking.”
“It’s lovely to have people excited about beauty or fashion, but it’s not how I live my life,” she said. With Free Food Studios, “I wanted more autonomy for me, and to introduce people I think are fascinating or doing something in a different way.”
Ray said A+E Networks represents a huge, global platform that spans Hulu and Disney, and that the cabler’s investment in Free Food Studios strengthens their interests in success. “We’re all in this together,” she said. “We have respect for each other. We are all in the same swimming pool. I hope this is the beginning of a very large and long relationship. They’re excited and very collaborative, and I love that feeling of people who are adventurous and just want to go.”
A+E Networks previously bought two shows featuring Ray from Intentional Content: her home-renovation show set at her villa in Tuscany, “Rachael Ray’s Italian Dream Home,” for FYI and “Rachael Ray’s Rebuild” for Hulu.
Series for A+E under the new pact include “Rachael Ray’s Meals in Minutes” (30 episodes, 30-minute format), in which “Rachael demonstrates her creativity and flare from her personal home kitchen, cooking a complete meal in minutes from comfort food to sophisticated fare for entertaining”; and “Rachael Ray’s Tuscany” (working title, also 30 x 30 minutes), with the cook putting “her own unique spin on dishes from the region.” Future series are TBD. All projects produced by Free Food Studios for A+E will be executive produced by Ray in addition to Flanagan, Amoia and Lee.
“There is no one more synonymous with culinary programming than Rachael Ray and the team at Free Food Studios,” Rob Sharenow, president of programming for A+E Networks, said in a statement. “The team’s expertise and prowess in developing and producing high-quality content that viewers crave is second to none and we look forward to working together to bring Rachael and a new crop of talent to A+E Networks and screens around the world across all platforms.”
According to Ray, she wrote 80 pages of recipes and production notes — in three days — for the new Tuscany show, which is being shot at her home in Sarteano, Italy. She splits her time among Italy, New York City and her home in Lake Luzerne, N.Y., in the Adirondack Mountains.
This week, Ray and her production team have set up camp in Tuscany where they have started shooting new episodes for A+E. Last Friday, she was in Las Vegas on business (and swung by the Sphere to see U2 in concert that night) before flying to Rome over the weekend. “It’s a lot of time zones!” she said.
Over the past two decades, Ray has had multiple shows on Food Network. One year, she delivered a staggering 263 episodes to the cable channel. “Food Network has a terrific formula — but they have a formula,” she said. “They like games, competitions, stuff like that. That’s not the type of programming I want. I want a little more freedom to be in charge of the actual content, rather than just hosting something. I don’t want to host anything. I just want to make shows.”
Flanagan, who serves as CEO of Free Food Studios, praised A+E Networks as “great partners in helping us launch Rachael in the home space” with “Italian Dream Home” and “Rachael Ray’s Rebuild.” So “when it came time to scale and distribute our expanding food content library, partnering with A+E made complete sense,” he said.
Flanagan and his partners at Intentional Content have collectively produced more than 50 unscripted series and specials including “Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals” (Food Network), “Long Island Medium” (TLC) and “Moonshiners” (Discovery).
A+E Networks’ Home.Made.Nation features series and short-form content that cover DIY, home improvement, home searching and decor topics as well as food, cooking and travel and other lifestyle-related content. The Home.Made.Nation lineup is currently home to series from Ray and Buddy Valastro, as well as home renovation series including “Zombie House Flipping” and “Triple Digit Flip.”
