Hit TV Series about Restoring America's Icons Draws Historically Big Audience
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ultimate Restorations, the new series from American Public Television, is combining television's history and how-to genres to attract a big and rapidly growing audience. Not since This Old House premiered three decades ago, has a how-to series become a bona fide hit with viewers so quickly.
According to Scott Dwyer, Program Director of San Francisco's KQED, the show's presenting station, "Ultimate Restorations came to us with a unique combination that blends history, science, and restoration. The ratings and the response from audiences across the country have validated our own enthusiasm for the series."
The audience results bear this out: The series is airing in over 70% of US TV households and Nielsen ratings have already surpassed most cable how-to programs. Over half of the airings are in the most desirable day parts: Prime time, and the time periods just before and after. The show is attracting men and women, Boomers and Millennials alike.
Ultimate Restorations features the spellbinding restorations of America's irreplaceable masterpieces. According to Producer/Director, Terry Strauss, "The show's popularity aligns with America's growing interest in the Makers Movement that combines hands-on invention with new technologies."
Bob McNeil, the shows craftsman/historian host, believes he knows another reason the series has caught on so quickly. "It's genre-bending blend of drama, how-to and history disrupts the throwaway tendencies of our times. It appeals to our culture's yearning for authenticity in an increasingly virtual world," he says.
The series about the industrial age is built for the age of new media. It features second screen content for tablets, and will also air on its own ROKU and YouTube channels. Viewers will get short-form workshop tips from McNeil via daily posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. The show is a social media hit, too – a recent YouTube video drew over 400,000 views.
In a nod to digital age viewing, the show features sophisticated 3D animations of the historic restorations, with high-tech motion graphics similar to those used in today's feature films.
Soon, an even bigger audience will be tuning in to the show's restorations from steam locomotives that reshaped transportation to American landmarks like Coit Tower. The show was just picked up by American Pubic Television's CREATE TV network that will bring the series to over 90% of US TV homes, and is projected to air eight times per week.
http://www.ultimaterestorations.com
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SOURCE Ultimate Restorations
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