
"We have an entirely different strategy but the proof of its validity is that we continue to draw the largest household audience in the entire genre by a wide margin. On TOH, the homeowners are involved in each step of the way and only after 15 episodes of hard work do viewers see the finished product. They're just showing that they took a wreck, Chip and his team did a lot of heavy-duty lifting, and, miraculously, they got it to the point where Joanna could do her decorating and then the homeowners show up." They're not trying to convey even an edited number of steps of what it takes to do the renovation. "They're much more in the entertainment business.
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"When we put a window in we'll spend 4-6 minutes going over the key points of installing a window, but on Fixer Upper the windows go in and before you know it Joanna is there figuring out which curtains should go around them," he says. Most HGTV shows flip houses at warp speed compared to TOH, and Thorkilsen says his brand is just fine with that. "He believed that an expert, not an actor or performer, who could share the wisdom and secrets of their passion would be of tremendous value to the audience," says Eric Thorkilsen, CEO of This Old House Ventures and former senior vice president of business development for Scripps Networks, the parent company of HGTV. In other words, he had experience parlaying " latent cultural interests into wildly popular television shows." If a crowd like that can be drawn to an excavation site on a cold, snowy day, he thought, I can make a compelling show about home construction.įifteen years earlier, Morash had introduced viewers to Julia Child with one of America's first cooking shows, The French Chef, based on her bestselling 1961 cookbook. The idea came one winter day in Boston when producer Russell Morash drove by a construction site and noticed a group of people huddled around a plywood wall, straining their necks to see beyond the plexiglass window. August 30, 2011.Long before HGTV was a twinkle in its mother's eye, one PBS member station lit the spark that became the flame of an entirely new genre of television.
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"Kevin O'Connor reveals how to get your home on This Old House, The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 16, 2018. ^ a b "This Old House Makes House Call And Finds New Host".O'Connor lives with his wife and their three children in an 1894 Queen Anne Victorian home in Hamilton, Massachusetts. In September 2011, O'Connor debuted as the author of his first book The Best Homes from This Old House. O'Connor, also the host of Ask This Old House and Inside This Old House, holds a position on the editorial board of the This Old House magazine, published by This Old House Ventures, Inc. O'Connor made his hosting debut on This Old House in Season 25, Episode 1. O'Connor and his wife, Kathleen, appeared on an episode of Ask This Old House (Season 1, Episode 22), in which painting contractor Jim Clark assisted them with a wallpaper-removal project. The producers of This Old House approached him to become their new host following the departure of Steve Thomas. O'Connor worked for Fleet Bank as a Vice President in the Sports Finance Group, then worked for Bank of America as a Senior Vice President in the Commercial Real Estate Group. He earned a Master's degree in Business Administration from Boston University in 1999. Īfter graduating in 1986 from Saint Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey, O'Connor received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the College of the Holy Cross in 1990. O'Connor and his four brothers and two sisters grew up on various job sites led by his father, a civil engineer.
