Tastemade’s Prominence in the Foodie FAST Space Comes Down to Being ‘Everywhere’ Consumers Are

When Larry Fitzgibbon co-founded Tastemade in 2012 alongside Joe Perez and Steven Kydd, he did so with one thought in mind: What if they capitalized on a changing media landscape while doing something interesting?

“We thought if we could take this big business trend and couple it with our personal passions and interests, we could make something special,” Fitzgibbon, who is now CEO of the company, told TheWrap as part of our Office With a View Q&A series.

That idea led to a brand that has over 160 million followers across social media, 13 million monthly streams and over 5,000 creators in its roster. It’s also a brand that’s blown up in the FAST (free ad-supported TV) space, partnering with major streaming services such as YouTube TV, Roku and Sling TV. It has has expanded past Tastemade proper, launching Travel, Home and Espanõl hubs. That’s an impressive TV footprint for a company outside of the traditional Hollywood ecosystem.

Tastemade is the second company Fitzgibbon, Perez and Kydd founded together following the Santa Monica-based Demand Media. Founded in 2006, that company grew from six people to 600 before it became publicly available on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011. When it came time for the trio to look for their next project, Fitzgibbon felt drawn to the intersection between Silicon Valley and entertainment, an area that fascinated him from “a pretty early age.”

“It’s really the combination of those two worlds that has always gotten me the most excited, which is how is technology informing new media, and how will it define what media is to come? I’ve always been at the center of those two things,” Fitzgibbon explained.

Though Tastemade as a brand found its following through social media, that passion for tech and entertainment led the brand to launch a 24/7 linear streaming television network with its first distribution partner — YouTube TV — in 2018. The partnership happened in the early days of the streamer when YouTube TV’s subscribers were in the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions.

“It was really successful. It was essentially, the birth of a modern streaming cable network,” Fitzgibbon said.

Over the years, Fitzgibbon witnessed various competitors try to apply the economics of television to the digital space as well as the doomed pivot-to-video strategy that haunted publishers during this time period. But of the many media brands that emerged in the 2010s, Tastemade stands in a rare position. Not only is it still around but it’s still growing and has found a relatively strong foothold in the FAST TV space.

“There haven’t been that many long-standing pure play video companies out there that are successfully reaching audiences and creating original content for this new world like Tastemade,” Fitzgibbon said.

Here’s why adapting to be “everywhere” customers are is so fundamental to Tastemade’s philosophy and how this major name in the FAST space is looking at an industry that grew by 30% in 2024 alone.

It seems like Tastemade is fairly streamer and network agnostic. What goes into that approach?
It’s core to the philosophy. We were always the team that was a pure play video company. It started back in 2012. As every new digital platformer at that time started to add video into their platforms, we were always first. We started on YouTube, really. At the time, that was really the only game in town, but Snapchat Discover launched. Then we were one of only 20 channels that was available when Facebook Watch launched.

Tastemade was also always first on the streaming side … In early 2015, Apple TV used to only have six apps on it. Tastemade was added to that platform, which we were thrilled about.

That was really where we started to try to get to the television, but we always had that in mind. It wasn’t really until 2018 where we stood up a programmed network similar to what you see in cable.

Why do you think that you’ve been successful in this space where others have flamed out?
Our focus on video meant that’s all we ever wanted to be. We were building our modern version of what had come before. We really liked the Food Network, the Travel Channel, HGTV. These are all things we grew up with, but we wanted to build a modern take on those. Because that’s what we were always set up to do, that sort of protected us from some of this [pivoting danger].

It’s also the love of the categories. We weren’t coming in saying, “Hey, we’re going to exploit this moment in time or unique opportunity.” We love these categories. It’s fun to come to work every day if we’re thinking about food. We’re happy to talk about where people are traveling. We really do love home and design. Those are just things we like to think about and talk about. When you’re coming in from that angle, the audience knows it, and hopefully it’s showing up on the screen.

I would also say we were always attempting to do something slightly more premium. There was a lot of stuff on the internet that maybe was not being done with as much TLC as we were willing to do. And things on TV aren’t always the best either, right? … We’ve always tried to take that authentic approach, feature talent that’s authentic and allow that talent to be themselves.

As someone who has been connected to the influencer space for so long, how have you seen it evolve in recent years?
In the very beginning, particularly as it relates to brands, they were trying to strike deals with the people who had the biggest followings. That was the easiest metric people would use to try and track. I think over time people found out that maybe that worked for a while, but then it became a little less interesting. You start to see some trends towards smaller influencers, maybe even micro influencers, because they had the real engagement with their audience … That’s been one trend in that space, and I think it’s been a healthy one in spreading some of the opportunity and wealth amongst all of the different influencers.

We were sort of born working with talent out the gate. That’s something we continue to do with brands. Brands come to us every single day, and they want to engage with Tastemade and Tastemade audience. But we can also help them activate with other creators and influencers in the community, which we do all the time. Obviously, we have talent that appears on our shows, some of which we discovered on YouTube way back when.

How are you looking at the FAST space these days?
We’re very excited about it. It’s the fastest growing part of our business. We launched in 2018 with our first channel, Tastemade. We now have four channels that are available in the U.S.: Tastemade, Tastemade Home, Tastemade Travel and Tastemade in Espanõl. Our audience is growing very nicely, up 40 to 50% this year.

It enables us to offer our brand partners something different than we’ve historically been able to offer them. We would work with them on social to create sponsored content. Now that we have streaming television networks we can offer them to buy ads to go along with that. So now, when a brand or partner comes to work with us, we can really offer them that kind of one-two punch of everything that was great about working with us on social, but now they can run spots on our streaming network or partner with us.

What is the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?
Very early in my career, I had a great boss. Her name is Dawn Graham, and she told me, perception is reality. For me, that’s been super helpful, whether it’s trying to empathize with the other person’s point of view, or maybe I’m negotiating with someone and I’m really trying to understand how are they perceiving this situation … There have been many different times where I’ve pulled upon that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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