One of the things that you might not know about Top Chef is that they are paid by the cities and states they film in each season to come there. Many cities and states have incentives in place to encourage the film industry to bring jobs to the state. Some have incentives in place to encourage programming that highlights the are in a way to encouraged tourism. Behind the scenes for every episode of Top Chef since they put on their traveling shoes, the has been a hard fought competition.
These fights are not without their controversies. The most notable controversy was Top Chef Season 11, filmed in New Orleans. That season, Louisiana Office of Tourism paid the Magical Elves production company $200,000 and the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation paid in $175,000. While these incentives are commonplace as part as the Tourism offices way of advertising their cities, many were appalled that a production company would take incentives from Louisiana when it remained in devastating financial times after Katrina, and more recently the major BP Oil spill that devastated the gulf regions fishing industry.
Mediaite did some incredible investigative journalism of that debacle at the time.
In an article about the state’s sponsorship of Top Chef, the Times-Picayune revealed that the $200,000 paid by the Louisiana Office of Tourism came from a recovery fund established by BP to compensate the victims of the devastating oil spill. In exchange for the oil money, Top Chef agreed to shoot at least two challenges outside of New Orleans to
reassure people that the state’s oysters aren’t filled with chemical dispersants“showcase other parts of the state,” said state spokesman Jacques Berry.
Lest you think dear old Andy Cohen was not aware of this situation, Mediate included this update”
UPDATE #2 (7:00 PM EST, 5/15/13): After Anthony Bourdain nudged this story in the direction of Andy Cohen as part of a brief Twitter freak-out, Andy sassed back, “Call me abt Treme’s tax credits from NOLA.” Andy is, of course, referring to the David Simon HBO series on which Bourdain was a writer.
You can click the link to read that tweet. But please don’t get all up in your feelings and tweet Andy about this. It’s old news, he doesn’t care, and it will only serve to cause problems for this site. Thanks.
As for Treme, they generated several million dollars in income for local production crew and musicians. When they left the left a half a million dollars to local charities that was collected by the cast and crew.
That season of Top Chef was also very controversial because Tom Colicchio seemed to strong arm the other judges into naming Nicholas Elmi, a villain of the series over Nina Compton, who many at the final dinner felt was the clear winner, as did much of the viewing public. Tom even tried to defend the winner on social media by supposedly outing how everyone voted.
Similar things happened in for the Texas series for Season 9. When city tourism agencies passed on Top Chef’s incentive requests for filming in their fine cities, then Governor Rick Perry filtered almost half a million dollars to Magical Elves through an advertising agency at a time when there was no money in the budget to assist the states failing schools.
Because while state money may not have been spent bringing Top Chef to Texas, the governor’s office did agree to pay an estimated $400,000 “for the integration of [the state’s] brand in Bravo’s production of Top Chef cycle 9.” It says so in an estimate drawn up by TM Advertising, a Dallas-based firm that helps the governor’s tourism and economic development office promote the state. The agreement was “accepted” by the “client” — that would be the great state of Texas — on June 29, one day after the Top Chef crew was first spotted in San Antonio. [Dallas Observer story on Texas and Top Chef]
So all of these things were in the back of my mind when this PR crossed my desk last week….
NEW YORK – March 22, 2017 – Bravo Media’s Emmy and James Beard Award-winning “Top Chef” sets its sights high and heads to the state of Colorado for season 15. Production will begin this spring with a new batch of talented chefs battling it out for the coveted title amongst the breathtaking landscapes and thriving culinary scenes in Denver, Boulder and Telluride. Set to premiere later this year, the series returns with host Padma Lakshmi, head judge Tom Colicchio, along with Gail Simmons and Graham Elliot at the judges table. The announcement was made today in partnership with the Colorado Tourism Office and the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media.
“We are always on the hunt for the next great culinary destination and Colorado is fast becoming a hot spot for young chefs and foodies, making it an ideal backdrop for our upcoming season,” said Shari Levine, Executive Vice President, Current Production, Bravo Media. “Our new cheftestants will have an abundance of inspiration to pull from as they cook amid the awe-inspiring scenery and explore the bourgeoning (sic) culinary scenes from cities to mountain resorts.”
Cathy Ritter, director of the Colorado Tourism Office adds, “Colorado is the ideal locale for ‘Top Chef’s’ first visit to the Rocky Mountains, and we cannot wait for viewers to experience the scenic beauty, hospitality and vibrancy of some of our thriving culinary destinations, including The Mile High City of Denver, Boulder and Telluride.”
“Top Chef” is the number one food show on cable among P25-54 in 2017-to-date. The season 14 finale (3/1/17), which crowned Brooke Williamson (Los Angeles, California) “Top Chef,” hit season highs among all key demos, delivering 2.2 million total viewers, 1.3 million P25-54 and 1.1 million P18-49. The finale was also the most watched episode in over three years (Nielsen, Live+3; since season 11 finale on 2/5/14).
It’s interesting that prior to the Charleston season the New Orleans season was the highest rated.
As for Colorado, they will be paying up to a million dollars to have the pleasure of filing the upcoming series featuring three cities. And Colorado Film Commissioner Donald Zuckerman seems just fine with that. The taxpayers may or may not agree as budget cuts are causing the state to consider slashing the line in the budget for production incentives.
“We’re basically a job-creation program,” Zuckerman told Westword in a recent article, “and bringing Top Chef here means that a lot of people will be hired locally. And we also have the opportunity to really increase tourism by Colorado being perceived as a food destination. We all know that people will say, ‘Hey, I’ll take a holiday in Italy, because I think the food is great,’ or ‘I think I’ll go to San Francisco, because there are a slew of restaurants I want to try.’ And while a lot of people know we have an awesome brewery scene, they don’t know about our food scene. So putting the imprimatur of Top Chef on the food scene here is major.”
And that is more than you ever wanted to know about Top Chef production.
Having a tourism background, and having tourism fund four generations of my family, I don’t have a problem with this.
Whatever monies these cities have paid in, I’m sure they’ve gotten back in spades from tourism.
Exactly. The tourism industry is supposed to advertise too bring tourists to their state/county/city and what better audience than a national one on a show like Top Chef? Seems to me they are making smart choices in their advertising dollars.
I think of Tim Allen still hawking Michigan years after Tool Time went off the air. Or the California ones where assorted celebs tout what makes California great. They have to pay for national airtime which is expensive. By sponsoring Top Chef, they get a national audience every time the show airs.
While your support for the tourism industry is lovely, the taxpayers of Louisiana and Texas are both red states who are fiscally conservative. The residents of the states effected were highly displeased that in the case of Texas, this money was distributed by the governor at a time when there was no money for education, and in the case of Lousiana, when the state was bankrupt from Katrina and the BP Oil spill. So while, you may be fine with it, the residents of those two states saw it as more pork in their state’s budget when critical issues were unfunded.
But remember, I’m from a state where tourism is the entire state’s number one industry, South Carolina. Definitely not the case with Texas and Louisiana so my mind set is different.
FWIW, BP paid out tons of money to individuals whether or not they were affected or as long as they lived in those states at the time and filed a claim. While BP helped a lot of people, it was also ‘free money’ for a lot of people. Those shrimpers were reimbursed for losses then were paid nicely for helping with the cleanup.
My husband and I were living on the gulf right after for about 18 months.
Wow, are you seriously saying that those affected were paid enough? #Dumbfounded by that defense. You should put your shovel away before you dig your hole any deeper. It’s a very bad look.
Come on Tamara, are you seriously telling me there weren’t a lot of people who gamed the system? Tons.
And where did I say they were paid enough? What I said was that people double dipped.
Oh so now they double dipping. I thought before they were “residents of the affected state.” Do you work for BP or have some sort of connection? Because most people and a lot more sympathetic to the residents who were all impacted whether shrimpers or not.
Also the BP settlement didn’t even HAPPEN until 2016 a full SIX YEARS after the largest environmental disaster in our country the residents STILL haven’t seen much aid as it is all administered by the Federal government.
So yes I am saying that these thieving, nasty, double dipping residents of Louisiana do not exist.
WOW! JoJoFfl – my family has lived here on the Gulf Coast for many generations. I have no idea what you and your husband were doing while you were “living on the Gulf Coast” but clearly your 18 months of residency obviously left you as an expert on the people along the coast who were affected by the BP spill. You my friend, are living in a dream world if you think we were Compensated nicely. We lost our family business of 25 years as a result of what this did to our waters, fishing, boating, shrimping and oystering and tourism in general. Perhaps you should check up on your non friends that live in Bayou la Batre or Coden, Dauphin Island, AL and see how they are struggling everyday to get their lives back. Don’t forget Pascagoula and Ocean Springs MS. Our fisherman nor business were compensated generously. Many today are still trying to get something, anything.
That is so cool, thanks for sharing, I love behind the scenes stuff, and how long into the series do you think they are going to do a “Rocky Mountain Oysters” challenge?
Oh, you know that is coming!
Bet they use antelope as one of the proteins.
It’d be more elk, moose or deer maybe bear rather than antelope. Not a lot of antelope around here along the front range or mountains. They are more out on the plains.
Sorry, think I was back in Wyoming for a moment….
The people of my state of Colorado seem to love paying taxes for BIG ticket priced tourism attractions right now and from what I’ve seen, everyone is tickled pink about this. For some reason, there is a fallacy that the marajuana tax revenue is overflowing and paying for every school necessity so what the hell? Let’s just live large, party hard and our house values are off the charts now so nobody cares (it seems). Rocky Mountain oysters will definely be a feature, how could they not? I’ve eaten them since I was a kid on my grandmas ranch in Montana…they taste like chicken. You’d never know what your eating unless you were told (how they are normally cooked around here).
Homeless rates up and class sizes of 50; hey why not throw a million at a show. Gasp.
There are some great restaurants and I think its great fetured here but yikes that is a lot of money. Colorado truly has no issues with tourism! People think its a magical pot haven. It is not. I love Colorado and its truly beautiful but too many people are here lately and we don’t need more. Boulder just had a huge fire where 1,000 homes were evacuated and Telluride is ok but not the most beautiful place. I’ll watch for sure though.
And I don’t know where all of this pot money goes that are supposed to go to schools. I have kids in school in Denver. We pay tuition for thier public school, they have no air conditioning in most schools, shitty heating and huge class vs. Teacher ratio. Puzzling but hey let’s throw a million at a tv show!
That fire was AWFUL! did you see about the fire in Haxtun where the rancher lost 3,000 cattle? So, he lost his livelihood.
There was just a Q&A in the Greeley paper wondering about the pot tax revenue and why isn’t it going to the schools. Whoever voted for that was hoodwinked. The $$ went into a general fund along with the money from the lottery, etc. it’s meant for construction needs of schools and it’s on a grant basis. The schools in the worst shape come first. There isn’t a lot there. Only $42million and we are all being told it’s like buying $100 of groceries with $3. Also, schools districts have opted out because they want nothing to do with pot revenue but turn around and then ask for big bonds from their district.
I will watch the show definitely. Excited to see it but not excited about the taxes. Thanks TT for bringing that to light because I’m not sure some people know what goes into making a show. I didn’t.
Recipe featuring grapes of wrath leaves a bitter aftertaste.X on the spot for environmental impact leaving locals with the dregs. Roll out the barrel after Valdez? Please!
I had no idea what went into choosing a location Thanks for the insight. I’ve been wondering how Philly hadn’t become a city they filmed in yet