This old house
Also, the pipes repeatedly froze, bricks were crumbling and falling into the chimney flues, and the only bathtub would not drain. In the early 1990s, the couple and their three children were living in a cramped 1710 house in Acton, Mass., with oddly shaped rooms, virtually no closets and a tiny kitchen in need of new appliances. That uniform has come to be synonymous with home improvement television, with variations worn by current HGTV stars like Jonathan Scott of “ Property Brothers” and Chip Gaines of “ Fixer Upper.” Vila, who left the show in 1989 over a dispute about his celebrity endorsements, could be credited with creating the handyman-hero aesthetic: the rumpled, but somehow polished workman in a flannel shirt, jeans and work boots. In other words, rather than a 30-second shot referring to insulation, “This Old House” viewers get an in-depth primer on choosing and installing it. “People want that level of detail, and that’s what’s lacking in the other shows.” We don’t redo a house in one episode,” said Dan Suratt, chief executive of This Old House Ventures. “What HGTV is doing is great, but we look at this content in a different manner. In the first quarter of 2019, “This Old House” reached 2.043 million households, and “Ask This Old House” reached 1.876 million households, making them the two top-rated shows in their category, beating HGTV’s entire lineup, according to Nielsen data provided by “This Old House.”
THIS OLD HOUSE TV
One Rhode Island house featured in 2018 was described as an “idea house,” with vacation-focused elements like a plunge pool, barbecue station and outdoor shower.īut despite the competition from flashier cable TV shows, “This Old House” has largely stuck to its formula, with a cast that includes members from 1979 who still work on one house over multiple episodes.Īnd it’s a formula that continues to work. Scenes are shorter, and features like “sweat equity,” where homeowners strap on a tool belt and get to work, add drama. Morash particularly liked houses in warmer places, like Santa Barbara, Calif., where a winter spent on location would be more appealing than in cold New England.) To find the right house, the show accepts proposals from homeowners, architects and builders, selecting homes based on the scope of work, budget, timing, style and location. PBS picked up the unlikely hit show the following season, and in 1982, producers featured a homeowner restoring a Greek Revival house in Arlington, Mass.
Instead, it chronicled the restoration of a vacant and dilapidated Victorian house in Dorchester, Mass., that the station bought and later sold. Its first season, which aired on WGBH Boston, a local public television station, had no homeowner at all. Renovation-hungry viewers can tune in 24 hours a day to HGTV’s endless loop of angst-ridden shows, including “Love It or List It” and “Flip or Flop.” Other networks, including Bravo, have their own high-drama renovation lineups, with shows like “Buying It Blind” and “Flipping Exes.”īut “This Old House” didn’t originally follow the formula of the anxious homeowner saved by a crew of knowledgeable tradesmen that has come to define the genre. His brand of educational television paved the way for a genre of reality TV centered around what would otherwise be mundane tasks. The show’s creator, Russell Morash, whose credits include “The French Chef” with Julia Child and “The Victory Garden,” was crowned the “father of how-to television” by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences when it awarded him a lifetime achievement Emmy in 2014. “This Old House” is a powerful brand with a magazine, a website and a spinoff, “Ask This Old House.” Vila and the rest of the original “This Old House” crew introduced viewers to the concept of watching contractors turn tired homes into pretty ones, knocking down walls is big entertainment. “At the end of the project, you’re a hero,” Mr.