When Jennifer Davidson and Tara Sandler first brought the concept of what would eventually become "House Hunters" to programming executives at HGTV, they caught a big break. As they told Cosmopolitan, the same exec with whom they'd worked at TLC with "Great Country Inns," Michael Dingley, had taken a job at HGTV. "At that time, HGTV was mainly doing DIY programming. It was more craft-oriented," Davidson explained. "And Michael really wanted to take more narrative storytelling and apply it to HGTV."
In fact, "House Hunters" marked something of a sea change for HGTV programming. Not surprisingly, that led to a pretty steep learning curve, for both the producers and the folks with whom they were working at the network. "For a network that was experimenting with a new genre, there was a lot of back and forth," said Davidson of the initial episodes of "House Hunters." "I think we probably sent them many, many cuts for that very first episode and for that first season."
The format that they created was something that had never been done on television before. As Davidson told VoyageLA, their youth and inexperience at the time — which could have been seen as a liability — actually proved to be the secret sauce that allowed them to blaze a new trail in television. "Sometimes, it's better not to know what the roadblocks are and to keep persevering," Davidson said.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEpaCsrF6YvK57kGxobmliZny4tMCtZJ%2BZnqh6pbvNrWSkpp%2BseqKuzq6rZpuimq61u9GsZKGnpaiybrTUp6ueqqNk