New Orleans Weighs in on 'Top Chef' Host City Status
New Orleans clarifies the show's funding details.
Last week, Bravo proudly announced that Top Chef Season 11 is heading to New Orleans. Addressing questions about the show's funding, the city of New Orleans has issued a statement to clarify.:
A Statement from New Orleans:
The New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation is giving $175,000 to invest in bringing Top Chef to New Orleans. Our investment came from our normal budget, which we planned for, not BP dollars. The BP dollars we have received are being used for our summer online advertising campaign, per our grant request for those funds.
We are very happy to host Top Chef in New Orleans and are glad they will also do shows throughout the state of Louisiana. It is exactly the type of show we target to gain valuable national exposure. We view this spend as an extension of our marketing campaign.
We more than expect we will receive exposure that far outweighs our investment. When we brought Top Chef to New Orleans in 2008 for two finale shows, over 1.85 million viewers watched, giving Top Chef the highest ratings the show had achieved to that date. That was for the regularly scheduled show, and didn't count the many reruns, which added even more viewers.
NOTMC is honored to welcome Top Chef to New Orleans. We have tried to bring the show back since our first experience with the show. Now instead of two shows, we will enjoy having the program air during an entire season.
