Do you remember when we entered the 500+ channel universe and everyone said there will be all sorts of programming to appeal to every teeny tiny niche market?
I do. And we have been in that world for a long time. If you have a dish or cable you know exactly what I mean. Woman Hoggers is a prime example. Yup, a half-hour series devoted to women who raise hogs. I could list a hundred such shows. Say Yes to the Dress. It’s just women shopping for wedding gowns and the drama that inevitably follows. We’ve recently gotten hooked on Storage Wars. It’s a reality show about storage lockers.
Okay it’s a bit more than that. It’s about abandoned storage lockers. After a certain amount of time without payment, a storage company is legally allowed to auction off the contents of the lockers and the show centres on a regular group of guys and gals who bid on them for various reasons. One couple has an antique-and-oddities shop they’re trying to keep stocked, for example. Before they bid on the locker, the bidders aren’t allowed to actually enter it but they can peek from the doorway. Then they pay anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars to claim the contents and we watch them poke around inside, finding out what’s there. Sometimes it’s diamonds and antiques. Sometimes it’s old sweatshirts and broken kids’ toys. At the end of the half hour they total up who made a profit and who did not. Occasionally they take items to experts for appraisals. Once in a while there are little temper tantrums. Often it’s pretty funny.
The Los Angeles-area show is so popular that now there are spin-offs in other cities. Of a show based on the contents of abandoned storage lockers. Crazy right? Crazy fun!
Love Barry. Love Jarrod and Brandi.