“d00d did u see the boeuf bourguignon on that last ep so dope” (Photo: WGBH)
Twitch, the live-streaming site known for videos of people playing video games, announced Tuesday that it will launch a food channel with an inaugural marathon of Julia Child’s The French Chef.
The stream will begin Tuesday at 5 p.m. Eastern time, according to the New York Times. PBS Digital Studios’ Julia Child Remixed — Keep on Cooking video will air between episodes.
The French Chef, produced by WGBH in Boston, aired on public TV from 1963–73.
One feature of Twitch’s platform is an ongoing chat among viewers. “We always had this idea that it’s critical to be able to talk to the broadcaster,” said Bill Moorier, head of Twitch Creative, in the Times article. “There are some cases where the community just enjoys interacting with itself while enjoying prerecorded content. That’s what we’re experimenting more with.”
Twitch is streaming a decades-old show to a younger audience in part due to previous success with the approach. Last fall, it streamed another public broadcasting classic when it got the rights to air all 403 episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. The stream drew 5.6 million viewers, and viewers wrote 7.6 million messages during the marathon.