The Surprising Politics of <em>Antiques Roadshow</em>
Superficially, Antiques Roadshow is an hour-long report on a traveling fair where locals ask specialists how much money their possessions are worth. Peppered in among familiar objects of uncertain value—books, furniture, toys—viewers also see the clearly precious: Chinese-rhinoceros-horn cups, an 18th-century dollhouse, a one-of-a-kind Patek Philippe pocket watch, a long-lost old-master painting. In each segment, the appraiser asks what the guest knows about their item and then tells them and the audience about its history and, ultimately, its estimated value. Stack enough of those segments together, maybe toss in a few educational asides, and you’ve filled an hour of programming.
That’s likely nobody’s idea of a winning structure for hit television. But the American edition has been airing for nearly 25 years—and it remains the most watched of any ongoing PBS series. And more than 40 years after the original U.K. program debuted, it still regularly breaks the top 10 most-viewed shows of the week in the U.K. “It’s a monster,” Andy McConnell, a glass specialist who appears as an appraiser on the U.K. show, told me. “It’s got magic dust on it, it really has.”
Fans of the show might not be surprised by its lasting approachability, warmth, and abundance. Beyond that, though, its popularity might stem from the paradox at its core: This show about putting a price tag on coveted possessions is not actually about money. It’s not about getting rich, playing the market, amassing wealth, or even acquiring nice things. In a show whose segments are punctuated by dollar amounts, there’s actually a quiet, persistent suggestion to direct our aspirations somewhere else: history, family, sentiment, even love.
