America's Test Kitchen LogoCook's Country LogoCook's Illustrated Logo
Inside ATK

America’s Test Kitchen Welcomes Kevin Pang as Editorial Director of Digital Content

The award-winning food media veteran joins the ATK family.
By

Published Sept. 23, 2020.

America’s Test Kitchen Welcomes Kevin Pang as Editorial Director of Digital Content

America's Test Kitchen is delighted to have award-winning journalist Kevin Pang take the helm of its digital content strategy.

Over the course of his illustrious career in food media, Kevin has worked at the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, directed a documentary, hosted a television show, and created The Onion's food site, The Takeout. He's also a longtime fan of America's Test Kitchen, which you can read more about in this Medium post he wrote about his evolving relationship with food and how it led him to this new role.

We're excited to have Kevin's creativity and experience guiding our digital content. Read more about him in the following press release.


 

America’s Test Kitchen Names Kevin Pang Editorial Director of Digital Content

Award-Winning Journalist to Oversee Development and Execution of Digital Content

BOSTON, September 23, 2020: Today, America’s Test Kitchen named Kevin Pang as its Editorial Director of Digital Content. Pang, a James Beard Award winner, worked at both the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times and is widely recognized for creating The Takeout, a successful food site he launched for The Onion Inc. He is currently a contributor to The New York Times Magazine.

Pang has directed a documentary film on Netflix chronicling the startup of a Chicago restaurant, hosted a television show about cheeseburgers in Chicago, and produced a podcast that explores the craft of writing. In his newly created role at America’s Test Kitchen, Pang will be responsible for developing and executing a content strategy to grow the audience for the company's websites and social and video platforms. His new position takes effect on November 2.

"Kevin has been telling the stories of how food shapes the way people live for the last fifteen years. He has a knack for creating engaging content and has the digital business acumen that we need to continue enhancing our online presence," said Fran Middleton, Chief Digital Officer of America’s Test Kitchen. 

"Kevin has a demonstrated track record of growing online audiences," said David Nussbaum, Chairman and CEO of America’s Test Kitchen. "Our digital businesses now represent more than 40% of our revenue. Kevin is the person to help continue to build a culture of innovation that will accelerate the growth of these businesses."

Pang started his career as a journalist at the Los Angeles Times, and then spent eleven years at the Chicago Tribune as a reporter and restaurant critic. He is a five-time finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in journalism, including a 2010 win for "The Cheeseburger Show." In 2015, his documentary “For Grace” premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival to critical acclaim and just completed a four-year run on Netflix.  

Pang joined The Onion in 2016, where he founded the food site The Takeout and served as its editor in chief. Under his direction, the site attracted over 6.5 million unique monthly visitors and was ranked in the top 25 global food sites according to Comscore. Pang was most recently Creative Director at M. Harris & Co, a Chicago-based marketing firm. Pang was born in Hong Kong, raised in Toronto and Seattle, and earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Southern California. He is currently pursuing his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

"America’s Test Kitchen has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. It has helped me wow friends at dinner parties, make my picky eater son try food he never would’ve given a chance, and made me a better cook with every dish I try," said Pang, 39. "My goal is to help people fall in love with the ATK brand, as I have. It’s about reimagining the content we produce to a larger audience, especially digital natives, so they realize we’re the most reliable cooking site in the world. We want to make ATK a daily habit. If dream jobs had dream jobs, this would be it."

America’s Test Kitchen runs three websites (AmericasTestKitchen.com, CooksIllustrated.com, and CooksCountry.com), which are supported by more than 445,000 paid subscribers (up 10% YTD) and which do not accept advertisements. The company’s websites have been gated for more than 20 years, making America’s Test Kitchen a pioneer in digital business supported by paid subscriptions. ATK Reviews provides in-depth ratings for 7500+ supermarket ingredients and kitchen equipment and this content supports an e-commerce business that has grown 40% in 2020. ATK social platforms have a combined audience of 8 million and generate 125 million monthly impressions (August 2020). America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country are the two highest rated cooking shows on public television generating a combined weekly audience of 4 million, while platforms such as YouTube, Pluto, and Tubi, continue to expand the shows’ audience into new demographics with over 100 million minutes of watch time on these platforms.


For other recent hiring news, check out this announcement of Toni Tipton-Martin's appointment to editor in chief of Cook's Country.

This is a members' feature.