After laying the groundwork with a number of major commissions last year, Foxtel’s Lifestyle channel is seeing the results in 2022. Mediaweek spoke to Wendy Moore, general manager of Foxtel Lifestyle about the current slate and what the rest of the year holds.
As Covid saw people across the country dealing with lockdowns and border closures, Moore says that Lifestyle provided viewers with a brief reprieve from the seriousness of the news cycle.
“Lifestyle is full to the brim of those kind of optimistic, heartwarming, real shows. When Covid first hit, all our viewing just went through the roof and you could see there was a real move away from drama-filled villain shows.
“Our shows, people just flocked to watch the shows that they love and the ones that make them feel good. They restore your faith in the world, I love that about all of them.”
One of the most popular of those shows was The Great Australian Bake Off, which has wrapped up for another season.
“I’ve obviously watched all the episodes for my job, but I’m watching it with my daughters and my husband,” Moore said. “It’s just one of those great family shows that you can all watch together and you just fall in love with them.
Bake Off season five Bakers
“They’re all so lovely, and I love the way they help each other, it just feels like the perfect world in the Bake Off shed.”
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One of the new shows coming to Lifestyle on May 3rd this year is The Repair Shop, which sees Host Dean Ipaviz lead a team of craftspeople, who together come to the rescue of treasured possessions and return them to their former glory.
Whilst she says that choosing a favourite show would be like choosing a favourite child, Moore says that she’s particularly excited about the Australian series of The Repair Shop.
“The UK version is so beautiful. They did do a big refresh a few seasons ago and that’s when it really caught our eye, because it did get more heartwarming, and there were more stories, and it definitely felt more like the kind of show that our audience loves.
“We started working with Warner quite early and we shot it all last year. It’s beautiful, every episode makes me cry at least once. People see these amazing heirlooms that they thought they’d lost forever get restored to the glory that they had never seen, or that they might remember in the dim memories of their early childhood. It’s lovely.”
The Repair Shop experts
One of the parts of the show that Moore particularly loves is the cast that Foxtel has assembled for the show.
“The cast is amazing. I love Dean, he’s just fabulous. But the rest of the cast – finding all those experts and those craftsmen in these skills that are almost lost is just amazing. They’re such great characters, they’re so diverse and their backgrounds are so different, and they all get on really well together.
“Being on set there was really lovely, it was a bit like being in the Bake Off shed in that it felt like you’d entered a different world.”
Looking ahead, Moore says that 2022 is the year that Lifestyle will be reaping the rewards of all the work that went into 2021.
“Last year was our big year of commissioning, and this is our big year of actually showing. We’re going to have more Australian lifestyle content on air than we’ve had for years. We’ve got such a strong slate of new shows and returning shows.
“I’m really excited because it just feels so deep, and I think the whole of Foxtel recognises the power of our Lifestyle slate and how well known we are for it. Networks would kill to have that kind of depth of content in Australia that is so loved and so repeatable – people just come back to it year after year.
“With so many global streamers, that local content means more than ever before.”