Hannah Hart gets Food Network series
The irreverent YouTube star will eat her way across US cities on a budget
HANNAH Hart is the latest digital influencer to make the leap from the Internet to TV, inking a deal with Food Network for a six- episode culinary- travelogue series, that will also encompass a range of digital and social content.
The as- yet- untitled six- episode series is slated to begin production later this summer, tentatively set to premiere in the fourth quarter on Food Network.
"While I'm not a food expert... I do consider myself a food enthusiast!" said Hart, who has more than five million followers across platforms, including 2.5 million on YouTube.
“I love to eat! And I love to travel. But most of all I love to share my experiences.
“My life has blessed me with so many wonderful opportunities that my goal is to find a way to make them accessible to all!”
Hart may not yet be a household name for mainstream TV audiences, but in YouTube land, she’s built a cult following since her channel debuted in 2011, and is a virtual star among Millennial viewers.
Viewers of her YouTube show My Drunk Kitchen watch her gradual progression from sobriety to slurring drunkenness as she tries to make everything from poutine to pie while imbibing, for comedic results.
Most of the episodes tend to be thematic, focusing on a particular kind of food and a related beverage – such as the one in which Hart tries to curb her drunken craving for Mexican food, and drinks “jargaritas”, or margaritas in a jar.
Another has her using the wrong kind of apples, refusing to roll out the pastry and forgetting quite a lot of ingredients – but getting a pretty good baked strudel at the end!
Scripps Networks Interactive's Food Network ordered the show to series, with each episode featuring Hart in a new city across the United States – dining on a limited budget determined by that city's average dining- out price.
The challenge will be to find delicious food within that particular budget.
The series will be accompanied by digital content on FoodNetwork. com as well as various social channels, including Hart's, with a mix of video and other content.
YouTubers and other digitalnative talent have been coming to TV for years, with mixed results.
Grace Helbig hosted her own late- night talk show on NBC Universal's E! last year but it wasn't renewed after low ratings. Other recent examples include Vine star Jake Paul's casting in Disney Channel's tween- themed Bizaardvark and Issa Rae's Insecure, the forthcoming comedy on HBO.
Netflix, too, has been mining the digital domain for talent: its original series Haters Back Off, starring Colleen Ballinger as the awkward and heavily- lipsticked Miranda Sings, is set to debut on the service on Oct 14, and it has ordered a docu- series featuring social- media star Cameron Dallas.
Hart, in addition to maintaining her YouTube channel, is the author of My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut, which spent six weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Her sophomore book, Buffering: Unshared Tales Of A Life Fully Loaded, is scheduled to be published in October 2016.
Hart co- produced – and stars in – Lionsgate comedy Dirty 30, alongside frequent collaborator and YouTube star Helbig. It is slated to debut Sept 23.
And last summer, Hart signed with multichannel network Kin Community.
"The deep connection viewers of all ages, especially Millennials, have to food and food- adjacent content makes Food Network the perfect place for Hannah to continue to explore her own food adventure," said Kathleen Finch, chief programming, content and brand officer for Scripps Networks.
The Hannah Hart series on Food Network is produced by Warrior Poets, founded by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock and Jeremy Chilnick, along with Hart and Linnea Toney. — Agencies