DIY SOS

History

Launched in 1999, after audience figures showed interest in other home make-over shows such as Changing Rooms, DIY SOS was a weekly full builder and designer level renovation of a section of a viewer's home, taken on by a team of professionals after a viewer's DIY project had gone wrong and not been finished. It is the longest running show of its format having been shown for over 17 years, and has an active dedicated forum.

Launched with presenter Nick Knowles, the format consisted of a main project, and a small project initially headed by Lowri Turner (but after Turner left the show, a number of subsequent presenters were used for the smaller segment), and a viewer call-in vote format voting for one of three families who have made short video pitches for their projects to be addressed in the following programme.

An episode filmed in June 2009 was not broadcast after a domestic incident where a man held his wife hostage at gunpoint before shooting himself, the week before the intended broadcast. The episode is believed to have included the fitting of a new kitchen into the couple's semi-detached home.

DIY SOS: The Big Build

DIY SOS became DIY SOS: The Big Build from 2010. The show is now a one-hour programme in which the team enlists the help of local tradesmen, suppliers and the larger community to help deserving families. As the title suggests, the projects are much more ambitious and often involve major construction work such as building a loft conversion or extension. The new format DIY SOS: The Big Build was inspired by television executive Simon Knight.

In October 2015, DIYSOS- Homes for Veterans was the biggest ever build the team have attempted. Normally each episode tackles a single home and story. In this extremely emotional and yet entertaining programme, the programme renovated 8 properties into 4 new Veterans homes and a Veterans support office, in just 13 days drawing on the help of hundreds of building volunteers from across the entire UK. We also regenerated the entire street with new fronts, doors and windows and streetscaping. We highlighted the plight of British veterans who deal with post-traumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities having left the forces. The icing on the cake was persuading both Prince William and Prince Harry to lend a hand and their support to this great cause. This is a television series committed to helping the less fortunate in society while remaining entertaining, emotional and popular at the same time. This episode achieved a 34% share of audience and consolidate viewing figures of 9.6 million – the biggest in the series 16 year history.

Current

Royal Team Members

DIY SOS: The Big Build homes for Veterans special

Guest Designers (Big Build: Series 22 to 27 only)

DIY SOS Live

A live special filmed over the course of the May 2001 bank holiday weekend, with episodes aired on Friday, Sunday and Monday, and additional updates following other programming during the course of Saturday, Sunday and Monday (before the final episode). The Live event was trailed with a 5-minute preview show on the previous Sunday (29 April 2001).

Big Build specials

^A - Broadcast between series 22 & 23

^B - Broadcast between the regular series 23 episodes, 23.6 and 23.7, but not allocated a number

^C - Broadcast between the regular series 24 episodes, 24.1 and 24.2, but not allocated a number

Reception

Following the transition to the Big Build format, according to Stuart Heritage of The Guardian, the show is now a "big hitter", explaining that "Pound for pound [it] offers far more emotional heft than almost anything else on television". In its previous format the show had, in his view, merely "burbled along pointlessly", lacking ambition or an emotional connection with viewers.

Garden SOS

On 7 July 2003 the BBC announced a sister show to DIY SOS, to be called Garden SOS; Running for only one series, it was first broadcast on BBC One from 4 September to 21 October 2003. Using the same format as DIY SOS, it was to tackle gardens instead of houses. Described by a reviewer as a hybrid between DIY SOS and Ground Force, the show featured a red and blue team of experts sent to work on different projects, to be completed within three days. It was presented by television presenter Andy Collins and garden designer Ann-Marie Powell. As with DIY SOS, viewers were given the chance via a telephone vote to select the projects in each subsequent episode. Reviewing the first episode for the Radio Times, David Butcher described the series as "all good fun", but lacking in gardening related content, and suggested this was one garden makeover series too many in an increasingly saturated market. There were six episodes in total: