TLC Joins Greensburg, Kansas Saga With 'Making It Home'

Six-Episode Spinoff Series Will Help Rebuild Tornado-Ravaged Town

By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 8/4/2008 5:47:00 PM

The producers of Planet Green series Greensburg, about the rebuilding of a tornado-flattened town in Kansas, have created a six-episode spinoff series for sister network TLC called Making it Home: Greensburg, premiering on Aug. 23.

Discovery Communications and Pilgrim Films & Television are leaving no story untold in the saga of Greensburg, Kan., leveled by a tornado in May 2007.

Making it Home: Greensburg, hosted by design expert Doug Wilson (of Moving Up and Trading Spaces) and carpentry expert Faber Dewar (Trading Spaces), will zero in on six families and their renovation projects. Its run on TLC—now captained by former Planet Green leader Eileen O'Neill—will conclude on Sept. 27.

In addition to Leonardo DiCaprio's executive produced Greensburg, now about halfway through its 13-episode run on Planet Green, and Making it Home: Greensburg, Discovery and Pilgrim are making a four-hour series for Science Channel this fall. Hosted by Danny Forster, of Discovery Channel's Build it Bigger, the show will center on the science and architecture of rebuilding a town using environmentally friendly methods.

A one-hour special, Blown Away: Greensburg, Kansas, aired on Discovery on May 3, a day before the tornado anniversary.

That makes a total of 25 hours about the town's revival across Discovery Communications networks.

Shawnee, Okla.-based Allegiance Communications, the cable provider in Greensburg, has placed Planet Green on basic cable in the community so that locals can watch their town’s rebuild unfold on the network. It will remain on the expanded lineup until Allegiance completes build a new, all-digital platform throughout the community, a first for Allegiance, the provider and programmer said.

Allegiance currently provides cable, phone and Internet service to some parts of the town and to FEMA trailers. It is working with vendors on a new system that -- in keeping with Greenburg’s goal of being environmentally sustainable -- will use 64% less energy than the current hybrid fiber coaxial network, the companies said.