Antiques Roadshow is a human interest television show in which antique appraisers travel across the country. The origin of the series was a 1977 BBC documentary about a London auction house doing a tour of the West Country in England. The show has visited a number of other countries and has been copied in its format by other TV production companies. In the BBC series, various towns or famous places are advertised as venues. Local people bring along their possessions which are evaluated for authenticity, interest (especially related to the venue) and an approximate valuation is given. The BBC version has been hosted by Bruce Parker, Angela Rippon, Hugh Scully and Michael Aspel, Scully being the longest-serving presenter and the one most closely associated with the show. In the UK, an annual children's christmas special has become a TV tradition. These specials air under the title "Antiques Roadshow: The Next Generation" and use a specially reworked version of the regular theme music.
Often, the professional evaluators give a rather profound historical, craft, or artistic context to the antique, adding a very strong cultural element to the show. This makes the show interesting for persons interested in the study of the past or some particular crafts, or certain arts, regardless of the monetary value of the objects. At the core though the focus of the production is on the interplay between the owner and the evaluator.
PBS has created a similar show in the United States and the United Kingdom (a spinoff called Antiques Roadshow UK to differentiate from the BBC version).
The Roadshow is seen on PBS, and it is produced by WGBH, a broadcast station in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Canadian version debuted in January 2005 on the CBC, hosted by Valerie Pringle.
The list of professional evaluators who have participated in these shows reads like a "Who's Who" of famous experts of the antiques business in the UK and North America.
The show can also be seen in the Netherlands, under the name
Tussen Kunst & Kitsch, (in English; Between Art & Kitsch).
The show is part of public broadcasting and is always set in a museum in the Netherlands or sometimes in Belgium and Germany. The show has become so popular through the years that even specials have been made. The experts take the viewers on a "cultural-art-trip" to places of great importance in the history of art.
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