This Old House AXED

[seriph1]

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

No announcement

No explanation

No hopers


Bye Bye FOXTEL/AUSTAR

unless of course you like gardening shows, coz that's what's replaced it!

ps. and only repeats of Normie - bloody pathetic - FYI there are over 40 programs of this type on American Pay TV - we've now got squat

[johnmc]

sounds like a good reason to get out of the tv room and into the workshop :D

[morry]

This Old house and New yankee Workshop are the only things worth watching on the pathetic excuse for pay TV in Australia. You pay your big dollars and get (as the Boss said in a song) 57 channels and nothing on. As johnmc said, off the couch and into the workshop. Bye bye pay TV for me.

[TassieKiwi]

I never bothered anyway:p

[seriph1]

have cancelled my paytv subs as of today - their threat of a cancellation fee was met head-on and recinded.


any complaints about the cancellation of this brilliant show can be sent to [email protected]

Steve

[Trent The Thief]

/snip...

ps. and only repeats of Normie - bloody pathetic - FYI there are over 40 programs of this type on American Pay TV - we've now got squat

Well, not actually. We have a putrid mess of makeover shows, team fixup shows, trading spaces, DIY team contest shows, many, many hours of crappy warmed over junk that originated on BBC. Many, many interior design, gardening and landscaping shows.

We still have TOH and Ask This Old House. The shows here now have a new kid named Kevin. He's much better than Steve Thomas, who I always disliked for his condescending yuppie attitude.

The other shows we get are Woodworks with David Marks, Ask Jon Eakes (Canadian DIY Q&A), and "Ask DIY" and a A Weekend Home Improvement show.

Not really all that much considering. I have access to 4 public broadcasting channels, DIY Network (almost worthless), and 7 discovery/TLC channels, and Home and Gardening channel.

Thank goodness for New Yankee Workshop.

[seriph1]

hi Trent

Do you watch:

The house that John Built (Brit)

Location Location Location(Brit)

Renovations (American w/ Aussie host)

Real Reno's (Canadian)

I found these along with a few others I can't remember the names of, entertaining and informative. Tell me, is the Public Broadcasting Free To Air or Pay? I note the PBS logo at the end of Normie and TOH.

I lived in LA (does anyone actually....?) years ago and experienced the 104 channels of ***** and 7 channels of value .... but you have to trawl through them to find the gold and MAN OH MAN how do you put up with all those ADS!!!!!!!!??????? Every 8 minutes or so - it's a killer.

ROCK ON programs on DVD! Except of course, we in Australia have a relatively small market and therefore our importers do not bring in the wonderful architecture documentaries on DVD like Frank Lloyd Wright and Maya Lin's “Strong Clear Vision”

And ..... do you have a home DVD-Recorder ..... if not I may buy you one just to get my shows

:D

Anyway, I have emailed the program purchasers of TOH expressing my great displeasure, but being Australia will likely be ignored. I was informed by the retailer, FOXTEL/AUSTAR that TOH rated highly but they have no control over content. IN fact they had no idea the show was gone when I called.

They did however, know how to bill me $250 cancellation fee for leaving their pathetic excuse for a service…… it was only after I escalated the call that I got the penalty waived – then I waved …. bye-bye.

BTW we pay for the base (and only) PAYTV service more than $45 per month, and they have the balls to count things like free to air channels as part of their service offering, just because they share the satellite.

Anyway enough venting for this time of day (0645) I must eat and work


Cheers and enjoy your shows


:(

[jaws]

Steve, to me TOH is no great loss, I think it lost the plot when the 'new host' came on board. The show seemed to go off the building side and more into infotainment with visits to tourist spots and shopping.
Maybe with all the experience of the original team that a better show may turn up.
I did like Real Renos it was a more gritty show with all the things that go right and wrong with building from the client and the builders point of view.
Hope you get over your loss, I'll tell you if anything good comes to pay:D

Cheers
John

[seriph1]

heh true re: TOH's recent plot-losing.....Kevin is trying though. I found Bermuda was shallow at best and like getaway at worst...... the next one promised so much though :(

They received such an outcry from viewers that the team actually have bought their next project home, lengthened the show to one-hour and apparently returned to the hi-value in depth reportage we enjoyed in previous years.

I have built a library of all the shows from around 2 1/2 years ago, but would be very keen to get the ones prior to that time - problem is I can't buy companion DVDs online as they don't ship internationally.

If anyone out there has shows earlier than what was aired in 2002-ish (I will check my records) I would be love to borrow them - edit the ads etc out and return them to the sender, along with it all on DVD with my thanks.....

[HappyHammer]

Seriph1,

You should of gone a little extra and got the How To channel there are some great shows on there like David Marks (Better than Norm IMHO), The DIY show (English, excellent home reno show) and a new called Modern Masters, although the woman narrator is a bit annoying. I'm not a big fan of Kevin either, I'd rather watch NYW or even better David Marks.

HH.

[seriph1]

I was unaware that this channel existed until I called to cancel - it was not offered by way of an olive branch, even for a couple of months until they worked out what was going to happen with TOH. It is hard to have the energy to go further with it all when the operator or the supervisor I spoke to, didn't know what This Old House was! they actually had to go to the Lifestyle Channel website themselves to check anything about the show - and of course, there is no nothing on the site about the show at all, so my call was when they knew it no longer aired.

There arent that many programs that they couldnt have a list of what's on at their fingertips .... I mean seriously, what do these people do all day other than tell prospective customers what shows are available???????????