As Bauer Media plans the future of the business in Australia, Easter with The Australian Women’s Weekly is coming to Network 10 for the first time following the success of the Christmas with The Weekly special in December last year. The new show will be part of an integrated multi-platform event across Bauer Media’s print, digital and social channels.
Studio 10’s Sarah Harris will return to host the festive one-hour Easter special where she will be joined by editors from The Australian Women’s Weekly, together with Australian celebrities and other well-known talent from 10.
Following the format of the successful Christmas special, which reached more than 1.15 million viewers nationally and debuted to a national audience of more than 430,000 viewers, the Easter special will feature all the familiar favourites from The Weekly with a special festive twist.
Nicole Byers
Editor-in-chief Nicole Byers told Mediaweek the proof in the pudding with food shows and lifestyle programs is people do love to have them in their homes. “When it comes to the lead up to holidays like Christmas and Easter, it’s a beautiful celebration of food and fashion. The reason our Christmas special was so successful was that we worked closely with 10. It was important to make the show reflect the quality and integrity of the Women’s Weekly brand and we really brought that to life.”
The show will include delicious Easter recipes, family-friendly craft ideas, the latest seasonal fashion looks, party styling tips and more. “Being Easter, It’s a big focus on food,” said Byers. “As well as our Women’s Weekly chef, we’ve been joined by a few celebrity chefs including Miguel Mastre and MasterChef’s Hayden Quinn. Viewers can expect a lot of family-favorite recipes and hot tips for making life easier when entertaining.
With home living suddenly so important for us all, Byers said: “We’re trying to be quite broad, but a lot of it is shot within our home environment because we really wanted to bring to life that feeling of being home at the holidays.”
Byers revealed they have some great creative segments lined up as children love getting crafty in the holidays. “I’ll be featured on the show along with my daughter. A lot of the talent coming on the show have kids of similar ages. Miguel brought along his two kids and Barry Du Bois who we’re going to get crafty with has also brought along his kids on the show.”
Although Easter is a time for joy and celebration, the holiday can also be tough for some families, more so now than ever. “We have a charity element in the show – It’s important in the holidays for us to take a moment to think about those who are doing it a bit tougher. We teamed up with The Smith family for this show to tell a really important story. Sarah Harris is actually an ambassador for the Smith family so it was beautiful that all those desires came together really well.”
Byers also went out to Melbourne and had a chat with Samuel Johnson and his daughter. “I had an authentic and heartwarming chat with them talking about loss and grief, and they reiterated the importance of following your dreams. It was great to get together at their family home and chat with them.”
Integrated brand sponsorship opportunities will span The Weekly’s April edition, TV broadcast, Now to Love, 10 Play and Bauer’s social channels. Byers revealed their fashion sponsor is affordable women’s label Black Pepper. “We worked with them on a gorgeous shoot. We’ve been on the road for our fashion trip to Kangaroo Valley and the cameras came along with us. It was great to get back into one of those communities that are rebuilding after the fires.”
Byers mentioned that everyone was a lot more comfortable working with channel 10 a second time around. “The first time when we did the Christmas show with them, and we knew we really aligned on the quality we wanted to achieve. It was also quite an interesting mix because our team and creative director was very involved in the styling so there was a lot of back and forth of feeling a bit greener in terms of bringing it to life for the TV. It’s been a great learning for our team but we have worked really well with 10 and it was definitely a bit smoother the second time around,” she said.