Food fight II: fresh data shows viewers still crave Corus brands

What happens when you pick up your Rogers Ignite xfinity remote and give the command, “Flavour”?

Up pops two links on your screen: one for CORUS’s rebranded Flavour Channel and the other for Rogers’ newly-acquired Food Network.

Sneaky, huh? And, no, it doesn’t work the other way. Utter “Food Network” and all you get is Food Network.

See? It helps to also own the provider.

Curiously, there is no such chicanery if you give the commands, “Home Network” or “HGTV.” In those channel swapping instances, you just go directly to the channels you request.

Guess there really is no place like Home.

These brands were rejigged late last December after Rogers struck a multi-year deal to licence the Food, HGTV and other brands such as the OWN Network from US-based Warner Bros-Discovery. That forced CORUS to reconstruct their former Food and HGTV brands with a mix of Canadian and newly-acquired import content and rebrand them as Flavour and Home Channel.

How is that working so far? A month into the launch and re-allignment, CORUS seems to be benefiting from the long head start it has enjoyed as the traditional home of these newly-christianed offerings. The following results are based on data calculated by Numeris PPMs, Total Canada, Dec. 20/2024 – Jan. 12/25, unconfirmed, A25-54 AMA (000), M-Su, 2a-2a:

Home’s rebranded audience, which stood at 10.1 (still as HGTV) the week before the changeover, dipped to 9.3 the week of Dec. 30 and then rose to 15.1 the week of Jan. 6.

• Flavour, the Numeris data shows, was simmering at 9.3 in its last week as HGTV, boiled up to 12.3 the first week of January under its new name and then slipped to 10.3 in week two of the new year.
• Comparatively, during the first two weeks of 2025, Rogers’ owned HGTV launched to 1.4 and rose to 2.1 in week two. Roger’s newly acquired Food brand started at 2.1 and rose slightly to 2.3 in week two.

There are incentives, of course, for CORUS to rush these results out now. Two weeks doesn’t make a quarter but does make for a showy audience snapshot. The third week of January — when most of Canada was in a deep chill in front of TV screens or simply dodging incendiary US news reports — may tell a different story. Viewers may need a few months to settle into what lives where after a confusing specialty channel reset.

Still, CORUS will likely take all the good news when and where it can.

Based on 2024 fourth quarter results, CORUS claims seven of the Top-20 specialty brands. Over that time period, here is where the specialty channel brands currently rank in Canada (Numeris, adults 25-54, Total Canada):

1. TSN (Bell), 2. Sportsnet National (Rogers), 3. W Network (CORUS), 4. CTV Comedy (Bell), 5. CTV Drama (Bell), 6. HGTV+ (CORUS), 7. Discovery+ (Bell), 8. Food Network+ (CORUS), 9. CTV Sci-Fi (Bell), 10. History+ (CORUS).