Food Network's Peloton-style streaming service brings Guy Fieri into your kitchen

A new competitor has entered the streaming wars: Food Network.

Discovery launches a streaming service in collaboration with Amazon called Food Network Kitchen, which will cost $ 6.99 a month (or $ 59.99 annually) and has live cooking classes taught by chefs such as Martha Stewart, Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri. Subscribers will be able to attend up to 25 live cooking classes a week, and access more than 800 on-demand cooking classes and 3,000 step-by-step tutorials. Food Network Kitchen will also feature a curated selection of shows such as Good Eats, Barefoot Contessa, and The Pioneer Woman. Launched in late October, the service is available for Android and iOS devices.

As part of a three-year agreement, the app will be integrated into Amazon Alexa devices such as the Echo Show, which people mainly use as smart screens in the kitchen. Users will be able to stream Food Network shows on their devices and ask Alexa to save the recipes they want to try. Subscribers will also be able to use the app to purchase recipe ingredients and have them delivered to their homes via Amazon Fresh, Peapod and Instacart, according to The Wall Street Journal .

Seven dollars a month sounds like a lot for just one channel, and it seems strange that the shows will not only be bundled into Amazon's own Prime streaming service, but Food Network says it specifically models its classes based on Peloton's live-streaming model . Despite the high barrier to entry of their $ 2,245 stationary bikes and $ 20 per month membership, Peloton is "strangely profitable" (in the words of his own CEO), and the instructors are close to celebrity cults. Following in that excitement, Food Network is tapping into the power of their personalities, and the $ 7 streaming fee is starting to make sense when viewed as an exclusive membership, giving fans the chance to interact with their favorite stars.

Netflix can get Seinfeld in 2021, and Apple TV Plus can have all, like, 10 shows – but only Food Network Kitchen will give users the chance to interact with Guy Fieri and ask him food questions live. I imagine it corresponds to your favorite Food Network personality doing an Instagram Live, but with better streaming quality (have you ever sat through an Instagram Live you wouldn't immediately quit?). And maybe that alone is worth paying for.