Fans who adore home renovation shows are likely to be big viewers of HGTV, and if you love that network, then it’s incredibly likely that you’ve spent a good amount of time watching Erin and Ben Napier fix up neglected homes in their small town of Laurel, Mississippi on Home Town. While Season 5 of the hit series wrapped up several months ago, the earlier months of this year also saw the Napiers begin to branch out with other shows based on that already massively popular idea. Now, HGTV is going full steam ahead in franchising the idea, to bring fans Home Town Kickstart.
This year has already seen a big expansion to Home Town and Erin and Ben Napier’s work on TV. A woodworking show, Home Town: Ben’s Workshop, hit Discovery+ and was renewed for Season 2, while the adorable couple headed to a completely different small town for the event series, Home Town Takeover. It was the success of that latter series, in particular, which has now led to Home Town Kickstart.
What Is HGTV’s Home Town Kickstart About?
Audiences loved Takeover, and the new show will further its mission of helping with “America’s sweeping small town renaissance movement” by dispatching the network’s “biggest stars” to six additional small towns across the country, so that those areas can also have a chance at a new start. Each of the selected towns will get three different makeovers: a public space will be updated for everyone in the community to use, one small business will be given an overhaul, and the personal home of one local hero will also be selected for a major refresh.
People Magazine has partnered with HGTV for Home Town Kickstart, and will be on hand in each town to capture “unique stories of each town and its most intriguing people” to help make sure their histories get as much light shined on them as possible. About the new project, which will debut sometime in 2022, Ben Napier said:
Erin and I have renovated more than 80 homes in Laurel for Home Town and we’ve seen how these improvements change a community for the better. Now, with help from HGTV, we’re going to continue what we started and help more small towns across the country.
How Will HGTV Choose Towns For Home Town Kickstart?
Aside from the fact that Home Town Takeover (which saw Erin, Ben, and some of their famous friends from HGTV fix up parts of Wetumpka, Alabama after a months-long nationwide search) was hugely popular with fans, another reason that it was probably decided that Home Town Kickstart would be a good next franchise step is because of the number of entries the network got for Takeover. There were entries from an impressive 500,000 video submissions, which represented 2,600 towns of fewer than 40,000 residents. And, the six new towns featured on Kickstart will all be taken from that pool of entries that didn’t get chosen the first time around.
It’s possible that Erin and Ben Napier (who recently had their second child) will make an appearance or two on Home Town Kickstart once it debuts, but, if you want more of them now, you’re in luck, because Home Town Season 6 is set to premiere on Sunday, December 26, at 8 p.m. EST. Meanwhile, Home Town: Ben’s Workshop will be back for its second season on Discovery+, on Sunday, December 19.
