Food Network VP to YouTube; Mediaite Plans Food Site

Today in food media news: Bruce Seidel, the former Senior Vice President of Programming for Cooking Channel, is headed over to IAC's multimedia entertainment studio Electus, where he's now Chief Executive Officer of a new "food-centric" YouTube channel. Slated to launch in July 2012, the channel is part of Google's attempt to produce professional video content for YouTube that'll compete with traditional television. And Google is going big, reportedly spending $100 million on the project. Oddly, his bio remains on Food Network's website.

Seidel's got a pretty strong track record: According to a press release, before he was at the Cooking Channel, "Seidel held the title of Senior Vice President of Program Planning and Special Productions at The Food Network where he developed and oversaw some of Food Network's top-rated programs, including The Next Food Network Star, Worst Cooks In America, Iron Chef America, [and] The Next Iron Chef..." He was also responsible for bringing the Japanese version of Iron Chef to the US.

Also, because what the world needs is another food blog, Mediaite founder Dan Abrams is going to launch one. He told Ad Age: "We are going to launch a site in the food space in the next few months. While we haven't yet settled on a name, we will be utilizing one of our in-house editors, and hiring a couple more." Please call it Foodiotite.

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