Saturday, January 30, 2010

RFD-TV


Sure, barn cats and meat goats may seem to have a limited audience, but consider that while NBC and the other urban-inflected networks have been squandering their birth rights, RFD-TV has slowly become an empire, with viewers watching weekly in 13 million homes. Last year, RFD-TV recorded $25 million in gross revenues.
The farm suddenly looks like an aspirational place to be. And while it’s technologically hard to watch RFD-TV in New York City without a satellite or fiber-optic service, it’s nearly impossible to resist the channel’s spell once you get a look. Its show “Ag Lifestyles,” which has segments like “Horse-Theft Awareness and Prevention,” underscores the agribusiness bottom line while giving beguiling tours of working farms. Programs on rodeo, sleigh horses, quilts, beekeeping, coal trains, Lakota culture and pork-chop casseroles make up the lifestyle programming, while serious presentations on “Cattlemen to Cattlemen” and “Ag-PHD” (my favorite) supply the John Deere set with profit-increasing ideas about seed-bed prep, calf sheltering, apple packing and new traits in soybeans. Complete article

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