Canadian homeowners have made a pretty penny in recent years on the nationwide property boom, and so too has Canada’s HGTV.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, HGTV is today the biggest earner in the former Alliance Atlantis stable of specialty channels.

HGTV Canada launched a decade ago in partnership with U.S.-based E.W. Scripps Company, which runs HGTV stateside and remains a minority stakeholder in the Canadian version. Today, HGTV is part of the Alliance Atlantis package newly acquired by CanWest Global Communications and Goldman Sachs – a deal that the CRTC approved, with conditions, on Dec. 20.

Since its launch in 1997, HGTV has transitioned from how-to shows such as Martha Stewart Living and Mark Cullen Gardening to hard-hat TV – property and design shows that borrow from reality TV, drama and game-show genres to win over viewers.

‘The home is no longer four walls. Now it’s the lifestyle you dream of,’ says Anna Gecan, VP of content at HGTV, referring to popular shows such as the U.S. series Dream House or Primavista Television’s Design Inc., hosted by Sarah Richardson. These programs turn what Canadians strive to attain or obtain as home buyers and sellers into cutting-edge TV.

Today, HGTV draws its audience primarily from women aged 25 to 54, mainly living in the suburbs.

HGTV launched with a half-dozen homegrown series and a raft of programming from its U.S. partner. Typical of HGTV’s early instructional offerings was In the Workshop, a wood-working series hosted by John Sillaots, and Savoir Faire, a studio-based home-decorating series coproduced with HGTV in the U.S.

All that changed in winter 2003, when Holmes on Homes bowed, with popular host Mike Holmes taking viewers onto his worksites. Soon afterwards, Richardson graduated from Room Service, where she shared home-design tips with viewers, to Design Inc., which exposed the inner workings of the interior design business.

The value of host-driven shows that embedded home design and reno information in story-driven formats became immediately evident to HGTV programmers.

‘HGTV Canada was correct in its strategy to build reach by going outside the how-to format and to push the boundaries by going into new formats,’ Karen Gelbart, senior VP of lifestyle content at Alliance Atlantis, says of the programming shift.

‘The channel showed that its content is malleable and flexible, and can reach different audiences,’ she adds.

Also increasing HGTV’s primetime reach were British TV property shows like Million Pound Property Experiment and Location, Location, Location that began to pop in 2005.

By early 2006, Gecan was commissioning more Canadian shows that gave free rein to anxious home owners and real estate flippers, with likeable taste-makers as hosts (see story, p. 21).

These strategies worked to build audience and ad revenues, to the point that HGTV today tops the Alliance Atlantis specialties in earnings.

The channel had earlier begun to segment its primetime schedule with a property night on Wednesdays, and a home reno night on Thursdays.

In summer 2006, Gecan introduced Get-away Friday, which gives tired Canadians a week-ending uplift with travel home shows, including A Place in Italy and World’s Most Extreme Homes. The block proved an instant hit with audiences and advertisers.

‘We doubled viewing on a dead night for most broadcasters,’ Gecan recalls.

Fast-forward to this year, and HGTV has added two more primetime theme nights: First-timers Monday and Design Tuesdays.

Monday nights feature popular homegrown fare such as Cineflix’s Property Virgins, a portrait of first-time home buyers, and My First Place, a reality TV series about newlyweds buying and renovating a new Toronto home – Canada’s version of Nick and Jessica in a design reveal show.

Design Tuesdays is anchored by Colin & Justin’s Home Heist, a home makeover show from Cineflix hosted by Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan of Million Pound Property Experiment and How Not to Decorate fame.

The Scottish design duo performed so well for HGTV that the specialty channel lured them across the Atlantic to Canada by offering them a two-year exclusive deal.

Another get for the speciality has been landing Sophie Allsopp – sister of Kirstie Allsopp of Location, Location, Location fame – to host The Unsellables, a series that critiques ‘unsellable’ homes before fixing them up for a successful sale.

Elsewhere, Renovate Thursday is anchored by the venerable Holmes on Homes. Holmes’ latest creation is Lien on Me, a two-hour special to air in February that returns an entirely refurbished home – complete with green features and leading-edge materials – to a needy family.

www.hgtv.ca