Property Brothers stars Drew and Jonathan Scott broke their silence on their new HGTV show’s delay amid mass cancellations at the network.
Drew, 47, and Jonathan’s Chasing the West was slated to premiere on July 10 before it was pushed back to the end of the month.
“A lot of people don’t realize when we’re shooting these shows, we have certain shooting deadlines,” Jonathan, 47, explained to TV Insider on Monday, July 28. “We want to turn around our edits and our deliverables, but we’re also following real stories of real life. We just surpassed our 600th episode of our shows, 600 families that we’ve been able to help, and at the end of the day, that’s all we really care about.”
Jonathan noted that while they prefer not to air new shows in the summer, Chasing the West “just felt like the show that people are asking for right now and that’s why we did it.”
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He stood by the schedule change, adding, “There’s just as much uncertainty in when we’re shooting the shows and following the real story as there is on the scheduling side, and we’re trying to figure out the best time.”
Meanwhile, Drew clarified how their input affected Chasing the West‘s rollout.
“We produce the shows that our fans are asking for to try and inspire them, whether it’s the homeowners we’re actually helping in the show or it’s the viewers,” he shared. “And we’re also airing in over 160 countries. It’s really cool to see how we can inspire people around the globe with what we produce.”
In addition to Chasing the West‘s new date, an updated press release from July noted that the second season of Drew and Jonathan’s Don’t Hate Your House With the Property Brothers has been delayed from July 30 to “later this year.” The newest season of their hit series Celebrity IOU aired as usual on July 9, but the changes to Chasing the West and Don’t Hate Your House caused fans to be concerned amid mass cancellations at the network.
In June, HGTV canceled five shows: Battle on the Beach, Farmhouse Fixer, Married to Real Estate, Bargain Block and Izzy Does It. A source exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month that Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa’s Flipping El Moussas is “not coming back” to HGTV. The same goes for Christina Haack’s series Christina on the Coast, which has also “not been renewed.”
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According to a second insider, the trio’s The Flip Off is meant to be “back for a second season, but there is no filming date or air date yet.”
While some shows are being pulled off the network, HGTV has invested in new programming such as Bobby Berk‘s Junk or Jackpot?
“I’m excited to help passionate people sift through their cherished items and give them reimagined spaces that will best honor what they hold dear,” Berk, 43, said in a July press release, while executive producer John Cena added, “The idea for Junk or Jackpot? was born out of a conversation I had with friends. People often wonder if their collections are trash or treasure, and this show will help them find out.”
The six-episode season, which comes after Queer Eye, will follow Berk as he is tasked with helping homeowners decide whether to keep their unique collections — including superhero figurines or rare puppets and dolls — or sell them in order to renovate their outdated homes.
