The end of TV cooking

I had a very interesting conversation with one of the top TV producers in Ireland a couple of days ago and the general gist of it was that the glut of cookery programmes on television was coming to a tipping point. You can't switch the TV on these days without some sort of cookery show with practically every format under the sun being rehashed to saturation point. He said that networks were cooling on the idea of commissioning new shows and although there remained success stories out there a lack of quality was starting to appear. For every Kitchen nightmares and Masterchef there is a Guerrilla Gourmet and a food poker but lets not forget that we have come a long way in the last few years from the starting point of Ready Steady Cook as a daytime show. The new raft of TV shows has thrust cooking into a new light and made it a "sexy profession" again which is a good thing however I am glad that the powers that be are addressing the problem.

MasterChef 2008
One of the 100s of shows on TV is masterchef which I have been following for the last few weeks and it is exactly the sort of show that exposes all the wonderful aspects of cooking. The standard was outstanding for amateurs and I can assure you that some of the food they were producing would not have been out of place in a Michelin stared restaurant. Producing that standard consistently for large numbers of people is a totally different challenge but the contestants were excellent and admired by all the quality chefs appearing on the programme including 3 star Michelin chefs from France. An excellent advertisement for the profession of cheffing.