As these things go, my guilty pleasure is a pretty benign one. About the only TV I can sit down to anymore is home improvement shows. And not Tim the Toolman but old episodes of "This Old House," "Hometime," "Holmes on Homes," whatever. My local PBS and a few secondary off air channels provide a trickle of mostly repeats on the weekends. When I had cable Discovery provided a few more, and DIY was a premium channel with in house shows that were new as good as the Public Broadcasting originals.
So here's my question: Netflix has licensed hundreds of old TV shows to fill out their "Watch Instantly" system. Viewers are getting a sweet taste of what we've known we've wanted for decades. A la carte, on demand programming with an immense back catalog. Despite thousands of TV shows available in its system, there isn't a single home improvement, DIY or similar show in Netflix's catalog. A few episodes of PBS's "Frontline" and some Mythbusters are about the closest.
In fairness, shows like Hometime aren't produced by the network. They get some initial funding from the network for first broadcast rights which usually just covers the cost of production. Profits come from merchandising, and video sales. It has been said that tremendous sales of Hometime's Log Cabin series were largely responsible for the show's executive producer Dean Johnson being able to keep the Log Cabin itself after construction as well as build at least two other luxury homes for himself (also on camera, natch.)
I don't know how many people would agree, but that is my suggestion for Netflix.. find a way to buy rights to these shows cheap and I can live vicariously, without ripping down more walls in my house. My wife will thank you.
