Chip and Joanna Gaines on Taking a Risk With New Family Content on Max and Their Next ‘Fixer Upper’ Special Edition

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Chip and Joanna Gaines have been fixing up their content offering this fall with a focus on family-friendly content.

Not that the Gaineses were ever producing programs not acceptable for kids (unless we’re counting some questionably dangerous choices made by Chip on “Fixer Upper” construction sites), but that these new unscripted titles are specifically made to entertain across ages: a roller derby competition, a show comparing the skills of a human and a hamster, and a talent contest for late-in-life performers. “With streaming on Max, we saw this opportunity where we could create content that felt a little bigger and a little different than the shows that we’ve built thus far with our Magnolia Network, but that would create a space for families to be able to watch together,” Chip Gaines said. “Knowing that we’ve got five kiddos, and just the way that people operate these days with their devices — everyone’s always doing something in their own space, in their own time.

And we just thought, hey, what if we made content that brought people together?” Across “Roller Jam,” which concluded its first season Nov.

14, “Human vs. Hamster,” which debuted Nov. 21, “Second Chance Stage,” releasing Thursday, and “Back to the Frontier,” premiering next year, the Gaineses say they have only two real through lines for the four new shows: “emotional” content that’s family friendly. “The range of emotions that you’ll experience watching all four — ‘Roller Jam,’ you’ll think is exciting — and I also cried at those episodes,” Joanna Gaines said. “It’s tapping back into that human emotion, and feeling these things that are really special when you can feel those emotions together with the people you love the.