ELLEN’S DESIGN CHALLENGE SET TO RETURN FOR SEASON TWO ON HGTV CANADA
Furniture Designers Try to Get a Leg up on the Competition Beginning January 18 at 9pm ET/PT
Watch Full Episodes After They Air on HGTV.ca
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For Immediate Release
TORONTO, January 5, 2016 – Television icon and entertainment pioneer Ellen DeGeneres returns to HGTV Canada with a second season of her furniture design competition series Ellen’s Design Challenge. Premiering on Monday, January 18 at 9pm ET/PT, the highly anticipated season showcases 10 competitors as they sketch, design and build innovative furniture to avoid elimination. At the end of the season, the last competitor standing receives a $100,000 cash prize courtesy of Wayfair.com and their work featured in HGTV Magazine.
“I am so excited for season two of Ellen’s Design Challenge,” said Ellen DeGeneres. “I promise this season is going to be bigger, better and armoirier.”
During each episode, the competitors face design challenges that inspire their creativity. Racing against the clock, they are paired with an expert HGTV or DIY Network carpenter to help them complete the task at hand. The experts include Chip Wade, Matt Blashaw, Jeff Devlin, Matt Muenster, Karl Champley, Brooks Utley, Stephen Zimpel and Ali Azhar. Each contestant has access to a “build team” and a large workshop.
The weekly challenges are judged by Cliff Fong, a 20-year veteran interior designer and owner of the interior design firm Matt Blacke Inc., and Christiane Lemieux, executive creative director of Wayfair.com. Special guest judges will join the panel each week. The guest judges include Sean Yashar, founder of the design talent management firm, The Culture Creative; interior designer Peter Dunham; Wendy Goodman, design editor for New York Magazine; furniture and industrial designer Karim Rashid; Adam Blackman, owner of furniture gallery Blackman Cruz; Thomas Lavin, owner of Thomas Lavin home furnishings; Rodman Primack, executive director of Design Miami; and Mallery Roberts Morgan, Los Angeles correspondent for Architectural Digest France.
Ellen’s Design Challenge is produced by Ellen’s production company, A Very Good Production, and A. Smith & Co. in association with Telepictures. The executive producers for the series are DeGeneres, Jeff Kleeman of A Very Good Production, and Arthur Smith, Kent Weed, Ian Mallahan and Jonathan Singer of A. Smith & Co.
Season two competitors are introduced in the one-hour special Ellen’s Design Challenge: Meet the Cast airing on January 11 at 9pm ET/PT and available on HGTV.ca. Fans can also catch full episodes from season two after they air on HGTV.ca.
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About Shaw Communications Shaw Communications Inc. is a diversified communications and media company. Shaw serves 3.2 million consumers and businesses through a reliable and extensive fibre network. Shaw provides consumers with broadband Internet, WiFi, Digital Phone and Video services. Shaw Business provides businesses with Internet, data, WiFi, telephony, Video and fleet tracking services, and ViaWest provides collocation, cloud and managed services. Shaw Media provides Canadians with engaging programming content through one of Canada’s largest conventional television networks, Global Television, and 19 specialty networks, including HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada, HISTORY® and Showcase. Shaw is traded on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges and is included in the S&P/TSX 60 Index (Symbol: TSX – SJR.B, NYSE – SJR). For more information about Shaw, please visit www.shaw.ca.
ABOUT TELEPICTURES Telepictures is an industry-leading and Emmy® Award–winning producer of innovative, multiplatform advertiser- friendly television series and digital content for the first-run syndication, cable and digital marketplace. Programs produced by Telepictures have won 90 Emmy® Awards in the last 19 years, including Outstanding Talk Show or Outstanding Talk Show Host for 16 of the last 18 years. Current Telepictures series include Crime Watch Daily, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ellen’s Design Challenge, Extra, Judge Mathis, The People’s Court, The Real, TMZ, TMZ Live and TMZ Sports. Upcoming programs include Heads Up!, Hello Goodbye and South of Wilshire (January–February 2016 preview on select FOX Television Stations). For more information about Telepictures programming, please visit www.telepicturestv.com.
ABOUT A VERY GOOD PRODUCTION A Very Good Production (AVGP) is the Emmy®-winning television and film production company of producer/writer/actor/host Ellen DeGeneres. Based at Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG) with an exclusive multiyear deal, AVGP produces the nationally syndicated daytime talk program The Ellen DeGeneres Show and develops television projects for all divisions of WBTVG, including scripted and unscripted primetime series for network and cable, as well as additional syndicated fare. AVGP’s slate of television projects includes the upcoming animated family comedy Green Eggs and Ham for Netflix; the forthcoming unscripted variety/comedy series Little Big Shots and unscripted relationship series First Dates for NBC; the unscripted design competition program Ellen’s Design Challenge for HGTV; Heads Up!, a fast-paced game show debuting in 2016 on HLN and based on the wildly popular game and app of the same name from The Ellen DeGeneres Show; and Hello Goodbye, an upcoming unscripted series for the Travel Channel highlighting heart-warming — and sometimes heart-wrenching — stories of love, sorrow, family and friendship from travelers of all cultures and walks of life. Jeff Kleeman serves as President of A Very Good Production.
ABOUT A. SMITH & CO. PRODUCTIONS A. Smith & Co. Productions creates some of the most innovative, highly rated, and high-quality programming for the domestic and international television marketplace. The company has produced more than 3,000 hours of award-winning programming - with budgets totaling over one billion dollars across more than 45 broadcast and cable networks. Current productions include “Hell's Kitchen,” “American Ninja Warrior,” “Spartan Race,” “Ellen’s Design Challenge,” “Unsung,” “Full Throttle Saloon,” “Team Ninja Warrior,” “Container Homes,” and “The Dunk King.” Past hits include "Kitchen Nightmares," "Wizard Wars," "Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura," "UFC Countdown," "Joe Rogan Questions Everything," "Paradise Hotel," "I Survived a Japanese Game Show," "The Swan," "Trading Spaces," "Pros vs. Joes," "Skating with Celebrities," and many others. For more information, visit www.asmithco.com
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