The Reason Some Fans Are Upset About The Pioneer Woman: Hometown Stories
For some, Ree Drummond has exciting news. She took to Instagram to announce on Dec. 13 that her holiday miniseries, "Hometown Stories," is now available to stream on Discovery+. Across the arc of 3 episodes, viewers can compare their own anticipation with the ways people around Pawhuska ready themselves for the holidays. Judging by the reactions, some people are very excited. "I'm so excited for this!!" one fan wrote on the post. "Merry Christmas to the Drummond Family and Pawhuska!!"
However, that excludes those who do not subscribe to Discovery+. "While I like Ree, I'm not paying for anything else on TV. I don't need yet another channel," one person wrote, suggesting that the show should be on Food Network proper. "Sorry," another said with a similar sentiment, "Love Ree, but not paying any more! So sad that these shows get you interested, then go to Discovery plus!"
It is worth noting that none of these complaints are directed at Ree Drummond or her show. Rather, it is a similar lamentation to the one that arose when the move of Good Eats to Discovery+ was announced. People like these programs, but they just don't want to pay for one more service.
Does Ree Drummond make Discovery+ worth it?
The people behind moving all of these popular programs to Discovery+ are betting on the idea that their pre-existing portfolio of programs will spur subscriptions. Analysts explained to Variety that due to declines in televised viewership, there is no choice but for Discovery to take its massively popular programs and create streaming versions of them.
As Rolling Stone notes, Discovery+ is cheaper than its bigger competitors like Netflix, HBO, and Disney. However, such comparisons bring up a real issue. Do people like these programs enough to proactively subscribe to them? As Reality Blurred wrote when "Restaurant Impossible" moved to Discovery+, "I'll miss watching Restaurant: Impossible, but that one show is not enough of a reason to convince me to pay for Discovery+ at this point."
The same can be asked of Ree Drummond. While there are some people who love her work enough to subscribe, many simply use it as a background sound. "Pioneer Woman," "Good Eats," and "Restaurant Impossible" do not command the same weekly attention that episodic narrative programming does. Moreover, Netflix can show both the "Great British Bake Off" and "The Queen's Gambit." Discovery+ doesn't have that kind of range. This pushes people to sacrifice their love of Ree Drummond for the sake of varied shows in their streaming subscriptions.