This Old House

[spence]

Sure, technology is advancing so fast (along with the drive to entice consumers) that they're simply trying to stay ahead of the curve. Sooner or later a lot of what they show will become more common to the average new construction in many cases, especially with rising energy costs.

-spence

[nightfighter]

With the addition of Ask this Old House, I think they improved their format. The best shows were the earliy years of Steve Thomas as host. Then they became bombarded by manufacturers offering up sweet deals on the latest, greatest high end innovations. Morash just followed the money. When does that happen in public television? Their payroll has ballooned too. A lot more people on the production side. (Just watch the credits now compared to earlier years) And the magazine hasn't hurt their bottomline, either.
Tom, Roger, and Rich are all real good guys, but they are on TV, and get bombarded with goodies to use and install from the manufacturers too. And you have to keep those magazine advertisers happy...Steve has gone off to do a series of shows for Discovery Channel and History Channel. (Two sides to the story on his departure...) Like I said, real good guys, but different now after years of exposure. Hard not to be, I guess.... Roger is a striper freak too.
Bottom line, yeah, their projects are not priced in the reality of 98% of their audience. Given the economy, and the plethora of really crappy home improvement in a day TV shows, they would do themselves a service to refocus on the middle upper end that launched their careers.

Never cared for Vila... but not something for a public forum

[BigFish]

The Steve Thomas years were the best! (Anyone know why he left? Where he went?) I catch it occasionally now and I just laugh like..."Yeah, right! Everyone has stuff like that in their house!"

[nightfighter]

You mean you don't have a $10,000 custom block cutting board island top???????

Wondering if TDF will weigh in on this.....

[BigFish]

Oh! I do have one of those.

[spence]

I think you guys are too harsh...the show would be boring if it was about how BigFish Larry used a wad of duct tape and dab of epoxy to fix his plumbing problem.

The audience for the program is upper wage earners who will spend some money to rehab, and that's where they pull their advertising dollars from.

-spence

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by BigFish

The Steve Thomas years were the best! (Anyone know why he left?

Heard it was cause the local Starbucks was outa latte.

[Squid kids Dad]

I still like the show

[Nebe]

I think the reason the show caters to the higher end jobs is that the middle class target group that the show used to cater to is so small these days that now the very rich crowd is the target group.. Also, if you didnt notice when Vila started the show it was geared to the middle class home owner who loved to bang on nails and tear down walls.. Not any more.. now its all sub contractors and as you said... big budgets.

I used to love the show. now I watch Lost.

[Raven]

it was about how they did things in the old days

and how to improve it with more modern materials

or real innovative changes that were Brilliant without

necessarily spending a small fortune....

now a days its...... keeping up with the Jone's ez

and looking for who can have the most gadgets

and high tech expenditures while staying green