Critically acclaimed 'The Mind of a Chef' ditches Netflix for VHX
'The Mind of a Chef,' an Anthony Bourdain-narrated and produced show that follows some of the world’s most famous chefs, gained prominence on PBS and achieved great success on Netflix.
The chefs featured in the show have each taken risks to get to where they are; now the show itself is taking a risk.
For its fourth season, 'The Mind of a Chef' is spurning Netflix in favor of VHX, the open internet distribution platform that enables anyone to build a business selling video from their own website.
"Netflix is fantastic, but for the content creator, they still operate like a traditional middleman,” Jamie Wilkinson, Co-Founder and CEO of VHX, told Found Remote. “Netflix exclusively owns all the customer relationships and doesn't share any data. Thus the people who create the content have no opportunities to learn about who is watching and why, which is essential to building a successful business in the Internet age.”
Until recently, Netflix’s walled garden hasn’t been much of a concern for content creators; the streaming service’s benefits far outweighed its deficits. That, however, is starting to change as creators have more content distribution options and ways to build large and loyal audiences. And Netflix, it seems, is starting to understand that a walled garden can’t flourish forever.
'The Mind of a Chef' has Netflix to thank for the scale of the audience it built, but the show’s producers at Zero Point Zero want to know who that audience is:
"We certainly appreciate the audience that Netflix, Amazon Prime and other subscription platforms deliver and the role they play in introducing the show to people who haven’t seen it before and it will eventually be there,” Rob Sheard, SVP Data and Product at Zero Point Zero said. “However, we want to build a direct connection to our audience and analyze the data on how they engage with our content that VHX uniquely provides us with. We also want to empower the audience to consume the content on their terms through whatever device or operating system they choose."