48 Fun Facts About HGTV

What does the initialism HGTV stand for?

Home & Garden Television was Ken Lowe's pitch to the Scripps board: the home and garden magazines Americans loved, turned into a cable channel.

Which media company bought HGTV's parent company in 2018?

Discovery paid $14.6 billion after rival bidder Viacom dropped out of the running, and the deal also handed it Food Network and Travel Channel.

In which Tennessee city did Scripps buy a small production company in 1994 to house HGTV?

Knoxville was home to Cinetel Productions, which Scripps bought in 1994; the site grew into the network's sprawling headquarters and its own low-cost studio.

What kind of programme filled most of HGTV's schedule when the channel launched in 1994?

Low-budget how-to lessons came first: hosts talked to camera about quilting, scrapbooking or rugs, and one later star called it 'that sock-darning and napkin-knitting channel'.

Which New Kids on the Block singer restores centuries-old New England homes on HGTV's Farmhouse Fixer?

Jonathan Knight went into real estate after the band first split, and had spent years renovating houses before HGTV built a farmhouse series around him in 2021.

Which film star opened HGTV's Celebrity IOU by turning his longtime makeup artist's garage into a guesthouse?

Brad Pitt teared up at the reveal in the 2020 opener: with the Property Brothers he had rebuilt the garage behind Jean Black's home for the makeup artist he had worked with for almost 30 years.

On Renovation Island, builder Bryan Baeumler moves his family abroad to restore an abandoned beach resort in which country?

The Bahamas: the Baeumlers uprooted their children to South Andros to reopen a resort that had sat abandoned for years, a gamble first screened as Island of Bryan.

What is the name of HGTV's annual sweepstakes that gives away a custom-built house?

Dream Home has handed a viewer a furnished house every year since 1997, yet most winners have let the prize go rather than settle in.

Why have most winners of the annual house sweepstakes sold their prize?

Property taxes and bills arrive with the keys because a prize house counts as income: the 2005 winner couldn't raise the federal tax he owed and put the house up for sale within a year.

Which Parks and Recreation actress hosts HGTV's Ugliest House in America?

Retta tours homeowners' proudest eyesores and crowns one the ugliest in the country, and the insult pays: the winning house gets a $150,000 renovation.

What did HGTV admit in 2012 about House Hunters?

Scenes are mostly re-creations because producers pick buyers who have already chosen a home; one participant said in 2012 that the houses she 'rejected' on camera belonged to friends and weren't even for sale.

In 2009, Time blamed HGTV's programming czar for what?

The financial crisis, Time argued, was fed by lifestyle channels that taught viewers how to extract value from their homes, with shows like House Hunters giving 'the housing game glamour and gusto'.

Which American politician named HGTV's Love It or List It as her favourite TV show in a 2012 interview?

Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, said she found it 'very calming', and after losing the 2016 election she listed watching HGTV as part of her self-care routine.

In which Texas city is Fixer Upper set?

Waco became a tourist town almost overnight: the couple's market pulled in more than a million visitors a year, and other local attractions reported record crowds from the spillover.

Which interior design trend is Fixer Upper largely credited with popularising?

Farmhouse-chic paid off at sale time: a 2018 Zillow Group study found starter homes whose listings mentioned a farmhouse sink sold for 26 percent more than expected.

Which HGTV sister channel was rebranded under the Gaineses' Magnolia brand in 2022?

DIY Network was relaunched as Magnolia Network in January 2022, giving Chip and Joanna Gaines a whole channel four years after they walked away from Fixer Upper, then HGTV's biggest hit.

What marks the Gaineses' Magnolia Market shopping complex?

Two 120-foot silos are rusting relics of a cottonseed oil mill; the Gaineses bought the long-idle site in 2014, kept the towers and named the complex Magnolia Market at the Silos.

In which state's mountains did Chip and Joanna Gaines film their first Fixer Upper project outside Texas, aired in 2025?

Colorado had been the family's ski-trip escape for a decade, so the Gaineses bought a 1960s house in the Rockies to keep for themselves.

What job does Drew Scott do on Property Brothers?

Real estate agent Drew finds and negotiates each house, then his contractor twin rebuilds it; he earned his licence while the pair flipped houses to pay the bills as out-of-work actors.

In which country did Property Brothers originate?

Canada's W Network backed the first two seasons, shot around Toronto; filming only headed south, to Austin, Texas, once HGTV in the US signed on as a partner for season three.

Which stage career taught Property Brothers contractor Jonathan Scott his first woodworking skills?

Illusionist Jonathan designed and built his own stage tricks, which he says is how he first learned to work wood and metal, long before he was rebuilding houses on television.

What unusual childhood training did the Scott twins have?

They were apprentice clowns who worked parties and parades for several years, until Jonathan decided he had had enough of putting on the make-up.

In which city were Property Brothers twins Drew and Jonathan Scott born?

Vancouver-born, the twins grew up on a horse ranch in suburban Maple Ridge, where they helped their father build barns and fences years before they renovated anything on television.

Which home furnishings brand did the Property Brothers launch?

Scott Living began in 2015 as patio furniture sold on the shopping channel QVC, and within about two years the brothers said it had passed $100 million in sales.

Who were the original designer and realtor duo on Love It or List It?

Hilary Farr and David Visentin bickered through 258 episodes as designer and estate agent before Farr walked away in 2023, saying the show had become a rut and she wanted new challenges.

In which cult film did HGTV designer Hilary Farr appear in a minor role?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show opens with a wedding, and Farr is the bride, Betty Munroe, who throws her bouquet to Susan Sarandon's Janet; as a child she had trained at the Royal Ballet School.

Which formerly married couple hosted Flip or Flop?

Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack became a divorced couple after the sixth season yet kept flipping houses together on camera until the show ended with its tenth, in March 2022.

In which California county did the Flip or Flop hosts flip houses?

Orange County was where the couple sold homes as estate agents until the housing crash dried up their business; they switched to buying battered houses to repair and resell.

How did Flip or Flop's future hosts first pitch themselves for television?

They sent in a demo tape, a home video shot on a lark while renovating one of their first flips; the series it led to ran for ten seasons.

What was Bristol Marunde, co-host of Flip or Flop Vegas, before television?

He and wife Aubrey mirrored Tarek and Christina's roles for three seasons from 2017.

In which Mississippi town do Ben and Erin Napier restore homes on Home Town?

Laurel reached HGTV through Instagram: after Southern Weddings magazine featured the couple's house, a network executive began following Erin's photos of the town and got in touch.

In which city is the Good Bones mother-daughter duo based?

Indianapolis is home to Two Chicks and a Hammer, the firm the pair set up to revive the city's neglected Fountain Square district one house at a time.

What was Karen E. Laine's profession before Good Bones?

Defense attorney Laine and her daughter, then waiting tables, taught themselves renovation from books and online videos while flipping their first houses.

In which city does designer Alison Victoria flip old houses on her HGTV rehab series?

Chicago supplies the old houses she flips, and they have brought real trouble: unhappy buyers filed a string of lawsuits alleging shoddy work.

In which city do Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas renovate houses on Bargain Block?

Detroit's boarded-up houses are their raw material: the couple buy run-down homes close together, strip them back and sell them furnished as affordable starter homes for first-time buyers.

Who hosts the show that helps lottery winners buy luxury properties?

David Bromstad opened the series with a couple who had won $180 million; rather than settle for a mansion, they bought the mountain around it, bison ranch included.

How did the Disney illustrator who hosted Color Splash reach HGTV?

He won the debut season of Design Star, earning his own series, and came full circle years later when he returned to the contest as its mentor and then its host.

Which sitcom's house did HGTV buy for $3.5m in 2018 and rebuild inside?

The Brady Bunch only ever filmed the house's street front; the rooms viewers remember were a studio set, so HGTV extended the real building to recreate them, with the sitcom's grown-up child stars helping.

Which boy-band singer thought he had bought a famous sitcom house in 2018 until HGTV outbid him?

Lance Bass of NSYNC believed his offer had been accepted, only for the network to swoop in as a corporate buyer willing to top any bid; it paid $3.5 million for the house.

Which sitcom actor hosted HGTV's 2020 revival of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Mitchell in Modern Family, fronted the ten-episode revival, and original host Ty Pennington came back to lend a hand as one of its celebrity guests.

Which Canadian contractor built a show around fixing other people's botched renovations?

Mike Holmes made 'Make It Right' his motto on Holmes on Homes, and the rescue business became a family trade: his son and daughter trained as contractors and now work beside him on screen.

Who hosted Income Property, helping owners build rental suites to offset their mortgages?

Scott McGillivray's formula began as a university project on how homeowners could earn from spare rooms, which he turned first into a business and then into the series.

Which 30 Rock actor hosts Zillow Gone Wild, based on the viral social media account?

Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock's cheerful page Kenneth, tours eccentric homes that are for sale or just sold, and one of them is crowned the wildest of the lot.

Which Atlanta-based Trading Spaces designer became a judge on HGTV's Design Star?

Vern Yip studied economics before retraining as an architect at Georgia Tech, then went from making over neighbours' rooms to judging newcomers and fronting Deserving Design for families with inspiring stories.

Which New York cable provider lost HGTV and its food channel for three weeks in 2010?

Cablevision balked at the steep fee rise Scripps demanded, so both channels went dark at New Year for viewers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut until a deal was struck three weeks later.

Why did HGTV shelve the Benham Brothers' series Flip It Forward in 2014?

Controversy over the hosts' social views erupted when a watchdog site reported the twins' anti-gay activism; HGTV reviewed the claims and scrapped the show in a tweet within days, months before its planned debut.

In a 2021 spin-off, what did Ben and Erin Napier renovate in Wetumpka, Alabama?

A whole small town was the project: Wetumpka, hit by a tornado in 2019, was picked from thousands of towns that applied, and the couple's team overhauled a dozen of its homes, shops and public spaces.

What do the winners of HGTV's renovation contest Rock the Block receive besides bragging rights?

A street named after them is the trophy: teams of HGTV stars get matching new-build houses on one road, the same budget and a few weeks, and the highest appraisal wins.