Rachael Ray's RR:MM Sneak Peek Gave Us More Questions Than Answers
Rachael Ray is branching out. She's already built a monument to herself in TV history with more than 2,000 episodes of the "Rachael Ray" show, which has been airing since 2006, according to IMDb. She's a regular on the talk show circuit, too, pretty much any hour of the day or night — from "Good Morning America" to "Late Night with Seth Meyers." And her natural TV effervescence has enlivened numerous Food Network shows, including "Food Network Star" and "Worst Cooks in America."
Ray's next medium appears to be Facebook, or more specifically the social media platform's streaming service Facebook Watch. A&E is showing "Rachael Ray's Italian Dream Home" on October 19, according to the TV network's Facebook page. Also coming to Facebook Watch on October 19 is a series produced by Ray's own team, Free Food Studios (via Facebook). It's got a nice, compact title: "RR:MM," which stands for "Rachael Ray: Meals in Minutes." Free Food Studios has dropped two sneak peek videos on Facebook, each at least 19 minutes long. Instead of showing off Ray's wide-ranging cooking skills, both videos feature pork chops.
The fact that two episodes of a new show are about the exact same protein leads to a number of questions, not the least of which are "Is the pork industry paying you?" and "Are you going to cook anything else?"
The National Pork Board is a Rachael Ray sponsor
A startup production studio that delivers content through social media and whose Facebook page boasts a following in the modest triple digits is going to need a sponsor. So yes, to answer our first question about Free Food Studios' new show, "RR:MM," it is sponsored by the National Pork Board. The description on the second Facebook sneak peek says as much. Near the beginning of that video, Rachael Ray delivers the same message the Pork Board tries to convey on its website: Pork isn't "the other white meat" after all. "Actually that's a little bit of a misconception because you want a beautiful, rosy kind of pink color at the center," Ray says.
The Pork Board only has itself to blame for this misconception. It started using the slogan in 1987 and kept it going for decades, according to The New York Times.
What about our other question: Is Ray going to cook anything else on "RR:MM"? It appears that way. Ray declares in the sneak peek that she cooks pork on Wednesdays. The first episode airs on October 19, which is a Tuesday. Plus, the show's intro shows quick cuts of a number of dishes that appear to be pork-free.
The biggest question "RR:MM" will answer is not how much appetite Rachael Ray's fans have for pork, but rather how much they have for the host herself. Ray already comes at them five days a week on the "Rachael Ray" show. Then again, a new platform might mean a new audience.