We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
Plans are moving ahead full force with the newly announced woodworking show on PBS. I’m told that WGBH and Tommy J. MacDonald have met with a few potential sponsors for the show. Laurie Donnelly was with Tommy at the New England Home Show when the announcement was made (see the video here) and she is with Lifestyle Programming at WGBH. (That department develops shows slated for a national audience, so this show will be pushed out nationwide from the beginning.) When I spoke with her, she didn’t want to spill the beans on what companies they had talked with about sponsorship, but she stated that interest was very high.
Donnelly’s idea for the yet-to-be-named show (she did mention a working title, but forbid me to print it until an actual name was decided on) dovetails with what Tommy had described. The idea is to cover a wide variety of topics: information about tools (hand and power), show the tools in use then move on to what can be built with that knowledge. And she also emphasized the idea of developing a woodworking community.
She also mentioned that this would be a not-so-perfect television show, meaning mistakes would be shown as would ways to correct those mishaps. That’s something I’ve heard woodworkers ask for many times , real-world woodworking.
Look for the show to roll out during Fall 2010 if dotted lines are signed quickly, or sometime in Winter 2011 if the process is slowed for some reason.
More on Tommy MacDonald
I received a copy of Tommy’s stepstool DVD and gave it a look. Like what is read in many of the forums, Tommy is definitely a Boston guy. His strong accent , how many times did you comment on Norm saying “sar” during his many years at New Yankee , is part of what makes him fun to watch. And his DVD is informative; I picked up a new technique that I had not seen before. Give it a try.
MacDonald has two DVDs out right now and there are three more in the wings. The stepstool and a toolbox DVD are the two available and yet to come is, according to MacDonald, a sweet table, slant-top desk and a set of chairs. I’m looking forward to those.
You might want to purchase a copy of the Stepstool right away (click here). The Toolbox is already sold out. With the agreement with WGBH, MacDonald has decided to change the covers on his DVDs. This could be an opportunity to purchase what might become a collector’s item in the future , did you consider buying stuff from Norm early in the game?
