City November 21, 2009 12:03 PM

HGTV Looking for Parkside and Allentown Families to Compete

HGTV Looking for Parkside and Allentown Families to Compete

"HGTV's holiday season spectacular, 'HOLIDAY BATTLE ON THE BLOCK' is coming to Buffalo and looking for young families in Parkside and Allentown who love to deck the outside of their homes for the holidays!

In each of two one hour specials, three young families, with children up to mid teens, are put to the challenge and partake in a friendly festive decorating face-off by the two HGTV hosts.

Each family, working as a team, is provided a healthy budget and asked to design, shop, source, and build something super-special from scratch for the exterior of their home, within 48 hours. 

At stake are the bragging rights and the honor of being awarded the title of BEST HOLIDAY HOUSE in front of the local community.

After the sun has set on the final evening, a local panel of judges from the area, along with the HGTV hosts, will hit the switch that has these homes burst forth in season splendor! After careful deliberation, the winner is announced to one and all!

HGTV is looking for:   

1. Outgoing young families with children up to their teen years

2. Who pride themselves on their annual outdoor festive decor 

3. Live in a detached heritage or heritage style home

4. Available for four days of shooting between December 10-13 or December 15-18.

If your family is up for the challenge and a lot of festive fun, please contact Casting Director, Sue Skinner of SMS Concepts Casting, by November 25th, with an attached family photo and an exterior photo of your house, at smsconcepts@rogers.com (with "Buffalo Rising" in the subject line.)  Sue says not to be overwhelmed by the top image, which is obviously over-the-top on decorating!

'HOLIDAY BATTLE ON THE BLOCK' is being produced by Cineflix for HGTV US and HGTV Canada.


Image: HGTV

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HGTV should be featuring Buffalo in their "What You Get For The Money" show. Check it out some time and see the modest houses you get in other markets, for a price that will buy you a great place here.

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Will this be around the same time as the cottage district festival of lights?

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it would have been more fun if it were riverside vs. lovejoy.

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HGTV only wants middle class families, preferably white, trendy black, or gay. So Lovejoy and Riverside won't fit their target audience.

replied to grad94
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Census data:
http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/files/1_2_1/MapDesc/WhiteBuffalo.pdf

Lovejoy and Riverside neighborhoods -- both over 90% white. Lower socio-economic class than Allentown and Parkside, but actually significantly higher "white" population. So this is an economics issue, not a race issue.

replied to sho'nuff
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Why would HGtv restrict themselves to such a small area? Might this be yet another ZIP-Exclusions event?.
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And, I agree with Jack. It's amazing that anyone would think they were getting a bargain price of $800,000 knowing the new owner will have to outsmart the neighbors EVERY SINGLE DAY for something that is a given in Buffalo; a parking spot--doesn't make sense.
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Is the upcoming Christmas lights event the first time HGtv ever even heard of Buffalo, NY?

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I love it. When it's not those pesky suburbanites, the prejudice on this board shifts to those snobby residents who live in North Buffalo. Where are people allowed to live in the city that isn't offensive to one group or another?
Parkside and Allentown generally have nicer homes...this is a fact.
This isn't extreme makeover. The network wants the neighborhood to look well kept when they get there. Not that their aren't nice neighborhoods in Lovejoy or Riverside.. but they're few and far between.

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Remember when the west side was nice when it was Italian? Same goes for the east side and S.Buf. Can you blame HGTV for picking certain areas? I dont think gangbangers are really into hanging Christmas lights.

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Sue said that they were looking for a historically significant styles of architecture (no new builds, no tract houses) that the HGTV producers felt was very prevalent in the two sections of the city that they chose. If you have a beautiful home in any other part of the city, maybe you should send in a photo anyway. It would be nice to see a city-wide representation of outstanding Buffalo homes.

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I think HGTV recognize the fact that poor people suck, so they stay awy from those areas. Can't blames them, poor people do suck.

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the aspect i like is what they're promoting. if you watch many of the shows on HGTV they promote "green" building, decorating, and whatever else is the cool thing to do right now, since everyone is pretending to care about the environment since it's the hip thing right now. however, here they're promoting a useless consumption of electricity in excess***. i'm not a scrooge, but too much is too much.

****although they may not specifically require lights in the contest, they could avoid hypocrisy by promoting families to compete in a "green" manner.

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wow. what a bunch of whiners.

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So far, two really, really, REALLY "healthy budget(s)" have found their way exclusively into 1/4th of Buffalo!
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Does Buffalo Rising, working with The Buffalo News, have any more such pre-arranged, big-spender agendas on the horizon for 2010?

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...Buffalo Risng, The Buffalo News and the three local TV news stations, that is...

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