The daily deal website Groupon is teaming up with restaurants owned by Top Chef contestants for a week-long promotion. It is the site's first foray into television.

From August 4 through August 8, Groupon subscribers in Washington, D.C., Miami, Fla., Atlanta, Ga., Culver City and San Francisco, Calif, will receive featured deals from nearby restaurants owned by the contestants in the Bravo TV network show. (via the Wall Street Journal Digits blog).

Offers include a $86 dollar cooking class that would normally be $172, and a $30 offer for $60 worth of food and drink.

Lisa Hsia, SVP of Digital Media at Bravo, says there could be future promotions with other shows. "Ultimately we’ll see how this goes. You can imagine the same kind of deal applied to our fashion and shopping-related shows as well."

Syndication

As the competition in this space that it created intensifies, Groupon will have to continue to break new ground with unique or buzz-worthy offers. Groupon competitor DealOn just introduced OfferEx, an exchange where deal providers looking to sell more coupons to connect with publishers who want to choose the deals most relevant to their audiences and the lowest commissions. (via San Francisco Chronicle).

One risk to this model, according to Vin Vacanti of Yipit: "the deals will need to be presented in an interesting way for the publisher's existing audience to buy into them. If the audience thinks it's just advertising, the product will struggle." Vacanti tells the Chronicle that publishers will have to be educated and encouraged to present relevant deals with appropriate context.