Every tv show worth watching is streaming on the internets or on dvd borrowed from the library. Im just finishing up Treme (excellent!!!) and starting in on Call the Midwife.

When TV went digital, I didn't bother to get a converter box or get cable - I just said enough of this, Im done. For those times you just want something on in the background, there's the radio or streaming audio. For time wasting, nothing beats a good game of spider solitaire. Actually, shows like Hoarders, Ice Road Truckers, and Amazing Race can be found online and/or DVD from the library - why pay for it?

We considered HULU, or ROKU, Netflix, etc but there was one thing missing that I like to see.

LOCAL news and weather. I like to be informed as to what's happening in our local news market, which is Burlington, VT.

And seeing as I have a life, I don't spend all day surgically attached to my phone or tablet. As a matter of fact, I haven't gone near my cell phone in about a month now. And as far as streaming TV, I'm not gonna sit in my office and watch TV on my computer. I enjoy my couch. I love being with my wife watching TV together.

Yeah Im sure going tv-less doesn't work for everyone (although there are ways of streaming internet to a living rm tv).

Back to the OP's point - what annoys me about so-called reality tv in general is just how agonizingly formulaic and scripted they all are. Shows like Wife Swap and Trading Spaces are very interesting - the first few times you see it. And then you just want to scream because its SOOO predictable - right down to the camera angles and the clichéd characters (ie the crazy woman, the slut, the spoiled rich b***, etc.)

It's funny, I tried to look up information on HGTV's programming director to see if it was the same person now as it was when this thread was started. I found one article stating that Amy Quimby was the director of original programming from 2004-present, but she wasn't at VH1 before that. Then I found another article from 2013 stating that HGTV and DIY have merged their programming departments and that Steven Lerner, Courtney White, the current directors of programming, were being joined by Christy and Dean Melton. They all seem to come from a DIY Network/Food TV background, with the Meltons working at sports channels and Entertainment Tonight as well. An article from 2014 said that Adam Fleischhaker and Lindsey Weidhorn were now also both directors of original programming. Yet another article from 2012 listed John Feld as director of programming for HGTV and DIY.

I'll admit to knowing nothing about running a television network, but how many programming directors does one need? Granted, these people are directing programming on both HGTV and DIY, but still. I'm wondering if maybe this isn't a case of too many cooks spoil the soup.

They are apparently bringing in a lot of new shows between HGTV and DIY--31 new series, 24 specials, and 22 pilots in development. None of the named programs are garden-themed, of course. I guess that G is officially obsolete.

Local networks broadcasts are free and come in HD. Just get an antenna. No monthly bills. HD was made for antennas. We have verizon fios for 1 tv in our house. The others are connected to an antenna in the attic. The picture is fantastic. Someday we may turn off the fios tv. We also have netflix but again that can be turned off.

Not everybody lives near enough to the source to get the digital signals. That works great in urban or suburban areas, but rural areas are left out in the cold.

We have DirecTV. When we moved to our current home in 2000 there was no cable, so it was either Satellite or a 20 ft antenna. (As a reference, an average telephone pole is 20 ft high.)

Even cellular service didn't get here until 2007.

I'm not planning on flipping or buying a new house any time soon. HGTV doesn't have much to offer me. I was a huge fan of the channel a few years ago but now I don't even watch. One of the shows that bothers me the most is house hunters international. If you want 3 bathrooms, walk in closets and a huge kitchen stay in your McMansion in Dallas. Why move to a foreign country and not truly experience it ? What I want is decorating advice not to have my ears assaulted by an over active host. So I've had no choice but to turn to an old school alternative. Magazines, can always get a good subscription rate, a friendly civil servant brings them right to my door and they never yell or insult my taste. I highly recommend them.

I pick and choose what I watch, and DVR anything I like. Sometimes I get DIY Network, Food TV and HGTV all mixed up. Not sure which show is on which, but some are so predictable, I just want to know the outcome. For instance "Love it or List it." I flip through the second commercial where they discuss the budget. Then I flip past the last commercial to see the final design outcome and the final home choice. Did they love it, or list it? I skip all the drama in-between. I love the food challenge shows, like "chopped." Even that is predictable, so I scroll past the intro, meet the competing chefs, watch the cooking and presentations, then flip past commercials to see who got chopped. I LOVE my DVR! I am with anyone above who HATES Househunters!

Years ago they took the 'garden' out of HGTV. I miss all those great garden shows.

HGTV has gone down the toilet. Not everyone on the planet is in the market to buy a home. Or to renovate a home. What happened to the great classy decorating shows? Now we get crap. The angles the camera men use is crazy. It feels like your riding a roller coaster just watching. Hold still already! And please put some quality programming back on. garden shows are grately missed. People still have gardens. We don't all have mega decks and want to remodel. Get back to the good shows!

Now every show is tiny homes for kids. Sorry not all of us are interested in living in 300 square feet.

HGTV doesn't actually film many of the shows on their network...they are filmed by various independent contractors that HGTV hires. There is quite a bit of criteria that the buyers and property must meet to be selected to be on their Beachfront/ Lakefront Bargain series. For the most part this particular series is pretty accurate in the presentation and very little scripting is used..at least in my personal experience.

Hgtv sucks. How many shows by the property brothers can a person sit through.

I agree put the *garden* back into hgtv.

So true. Bring back the gardening shows. I really don't watch this other stuff.

We have to realize every show on the network is geared to people under 40 as that's the advertisers' target audience. Over that age and people tend to stay with the products they use.

saw a segment of Daryhl Halls (sp) show.

as in Daryhls House.

does anyone know what channel/where it can be seen?

Daryl's House as in Daryl Hall, the music show? It's on Palladia in my line-up.

I can't watch HGTV anymore. Its not the same

This keeps coming up. It's the 3rd most watched cable network in the USA. So all the complaints over the years on these forums count for squat.

That said, I can't watch it anymore. Where are the gardening shows?

I find DIY to be far more infuriating. Is there even a single DIY show on there? Seems like HGTV with flippers, professional teams, and celebrities. And then there's the insane Holmes show, where he seemingly spends $100k to fix a $10k problem, and chooses the most repulsive finishes (why anyone would let his team pick their paint color and tiles is beyond me). Yes, I'm sure the houses are much more structurally sound when he is done, but they spend way more than the houses warrant.

I'm just so tired of the shows that are on all day long. The programming needs variety. It's gotten very boring and repetitive. I used to watch HGTV all day and not change the channel, but now I just can't stand to watch the same thing over and over again. Change it up!!!!! Please!!!! I'm sick of the remodeling couples!

Actually, I'm thinking about cutting the chord. Hgtv was my favorite channel and it's not worth what I pay monthly anymore.

Reading comments from 2008. Wish we had that now. Just so bad. I hate the music that is supposed to tell me how to feel. I cut cable over a year ago. People are just to stupid these days.

I like HGTV. But I liked it more when they had gardening shows. Now there's no G in HGTV.

House Hunters is my favorite show currently on. But it's so odd to me that people always list their preferred architectural styles, but never ever mention school districts. When in real life, preferred architectural style almost always takes a backseat to schools for people with kids. It's so unusual that it jars me out of being able to just enjoy the fantasy of the show, and reminds that it's scripted, with apparently some sort of agenda I don't quite understand.

mwedzi, the school districts issue is country-specific (meaning the US, for sure). I don't know where House Hunters takes place, and if only in the US, then your point is valid. But in Canada, schools are funded differently so it isn't an issue. If I understand correctly, in the US, schools are funded locally?

Yes, in the US school districts are funded in great part by local taxes, including property taxes. So if you live in an area that has more money and more expensive homes, that area will have more money for its schools. Money and performance don't have a 1-1 correlation, but they are significantly correlated. I consider it an injustice, but it is the way things are here. Anyway, school districts are a big driver in the cost of homes. Many people now remove that as a factor, though, and just opt for private schools as American public school quality declines. The percentage of students who qualify for free lunch because of low income, for example, is well above the national average of that low income, as so many people who can afford to send their kids to private school

I don't know about other areas and I don't know how it is now, but for a while I remember them having talks about allowing parents to choose what school their kids went to, even out of their area. I know when I went to high school I believe I choose what they called a "magnet" school program (every school had a major) and got special bus transportation to go to a school further away from my home. So school districts shouldn't ALWAYS be a factor when choosing a home if you have these types of things in your area.

Does anyone remember the Discovery channel and Christopher Lowell, Lynette Jennings, and Kitty Barthoamew(sp)? Those were the good 'ol days!

Look, several HGTV shows have come in and out of Austin TX. Not going to point a single finger (since they all sort of suck) but the after-stories of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am "remodels" done don't have a lot of love for what was done.

Yes, the owners go in all dewey-eyed and "wowed " by some remodel and- of course- a boatload of staging. They the shows leave and the owners are left to fix things like major foundation issues that- if weren't for the "hurry up and create drama" would have either driven them away or at least caused them pause enough to fix before the remodel.

Blech. That's not entertainment. It's a nightmare.

Memorable moments:

Sarah Richardson took a house with a powder room on the mainfloor and eliminated it in the renovation. She also renovated a cottage and puta washer & dryer on a balcony with no roof and no screen...imagine doing laundry with bugs and rain!...not to mention that the balcony looked like would shimmy and shake during the spin cycle.

Paul Lafrance wants to put pergolas in all his gardens, butwhere in Canada does it make sense to have a pergola? In Canada, the best decksare sheltered from the rain and sun, so they’re cool and dry in summer and families with young kids don’t have to grab the sunscreen if the kids go play on the deck for half an hour. Sheltered so that a rainstorm doesn’t soak the deck furniture and make the place unusable until hours and hours after the rain stops. Oh, and Lafrance loves multilevel decks with enough tripping hazards to keep ERs and insurance companies in business for the life of the deck. But, saving the best for last...for a family with a child with young twins or expecting twins (don’t remember), Lafrance made a multi-level deck with no railing for much of its run and no barrier between it and the backyard swimming pool, and yes, I think it had a pergola!

Scott McGillivray custom built his own house....a gazillion square foot house, but he gave his daughters a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. And, with two young girls they added a tall curved staircase in the front entryway, where a tumble down the stairs would end on a hard marble floor. Not to mention that the stairs had no risers, so it looked to me like a small child could just fall through. And the balusters did not look like they had minimum 4” openings to be safe for children. And in case you didn’t get enough over-the-top boutique hotel chic, the toilet seat in the ground floor powder room is black, so it will show every splash of water and every bit of dust, but will hide any poop smears very well.

I hate renovating shows. I hate remodels I hate house hunters. Give me back breaking ground. Room by room. Shabby chic carol duval. Good shows that actually showed how to do things step by step. Get rid of these waste of time shows that show only poof it’s done by magic of recording

It’s trite and every single re-done house looks the same.

Biggest problem with HGTV is that they are encouraging far too many people to get infected with TB- "True Believer" disease. Notice, please, how (after a few months of the honey moon of moving into that cheaply renovated interior) we never hear from them again. HGTV made its mark in my city. Never really paying attention to things like screwed up foundations, etc. More than a few of these participants ended up with really expensive headaches, after the glow of TV was gone.

HGTV, though, is masterful at making these show seem like reality. Thus, all the people who watch think- hey, I can do that too!

"She also renovated a cottage and puta washer & dryer on a balcony with no roof and no screen...imagine doing laundry with bugs and rain!...not to mention that the balcony looked like would shimmy and shake during the spin cycle."

This reminds me of that I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel are fighting over the washer and pushing it back and forth over the balcony LOL!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-tWuWa0oIs

I started watching HGTV around 1998. At that time they had a variety of interesting programming. They use to have shows about small spaces, designing on a dime, gardening shows, color theory, etc. I loved watching Candice and also Sarah Richardson. Somewhere along the way, it became a network of shows with the same format - and the same people. Just repetitive dribble. It‘s horrible now. I stopped watching and will never return. Such a waste of air-time.

What if a reality tv show was "reality?" Real costs, real timelines, real people, real stressors, and floor plans that are not open concept. But then, what would be the fun in that?

I'll admit I haven't read this entire thread but wanted to comment.

I believe HGTV is on it's way out. When they started only filming shows that are cheap to produce (which are all of their programs). I knew it could/would be gone soon. I really miss the gardening shows. Remember Paul James? I don't remember the name of his gardening show but it was the best!

When I started watching HGTV Candice Olson's interior design was a hot commodity. They had a few gardening shows or curb appeal shows, and renovating old houses which were interesting. Now it's realty shows and Property Brothers.

I learn so much more from YouTube.

HGTV is such a waste of air space.

Color theory! Now there is a lost art. 98% of the posts on this forum have no clue - white + black + gray, gray and more gray is the extent of their repertoire. Meanwhile if you look at what real designers are doing, color is in fact being used in new and contemporary ways but knowledge of color relationships is prerequisite This has nothing to do with taste and fashion, its how humans are hardwired to experience color. Yes exact shades/tones of color may go in and out of fashion but not colors themselves. When I read a so-called "pro" on this forum declaring she "hates" orange, for instance, that raises a red flag. Real designers love color, all colors, and none would write off or "hate" an entire section of the color spectrum. IMHO the problem is that by making design into infotainment, they had to dumb it down and make it more about emotion than fact.

^^^totally agree! If I have to see one more episode of Flip or Flop or Christina on the Coast I might become clinically depressed! I understand why people like the show but they literally pick the same gray floors, white or gray backsplash and white quartz counters for every house. Well sometimes they choose a hex pattern or a black and white tile (wow!) but the majority of the flips are dull and depressing. It is programmed in us now. I like to get decor ideas from various interior decorators or designers on Instagram. Lots of talented people displaying their homes (and their clients) beautifully.

They need to run Gardener's World or Victory Garden shows. So many people are gardening now, especially rose gardening.

if the wife ever passes before i do , i promise to NEVER EVER WATCH HGTV again !!!

There is so much great content on YouTube there is zero reason for

Yes indeed !

Boycott HGTV !!! … unrealistic budgets to ”reno” a house giving impetus for wives and girlfriends to renovate their own homes !!!

Reruns! Got used to reruns during pandemic, but by now there should be more fresh episodes. Not impressed by the few new shows, plus never liked Christina on the Coast and other new offerings. Why am I paying for cable TV when most content is old shows? Tired of Magnolia Network offerings, as well. I'm seriously considering canceling cable TV and streaming what interests me. Need to figure out how to get sports, too.

I watch it only on the treadmills at the fitness center. It is so frustrating to do 30 minutes on a treadmill and see only 15 minutes of actual show, and only 10 minutes is new content. The commercials take the other 15, then there is a good minute of rehashing what went on before the last set of commercials before getting to the point. At least I don’t have listen, the subtitles are good.

HGTV is disgusting. Is there not anything to show except house hunters?????????