First Issue Review – BBC Good Homes

There certainly seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for home improvement at the moment; at least in the minds of programme controllers and magazine planning teams. TV shows such as Home Front and Changing Rooms are opening up the bored middle classes to the potential delights of transforming their dismal dwellings into a state of the art ‘as seen on TV’ palace. These are the folk that became obsessed with fitness and jogging in the eighties, and have now returned home armed to the teeth with a Black and Decker Workmate.

Home-style titles like this always remind me of cookery magazines in the sense that a cookery magazine is bought with every intention of increasing one’s culinary repertoire. The reality of the situation is that you read it once or twice, and continue cooking the same meals that are repeatedly demanded by the family. BBC Good Homes fits into this category of ‘dream-selling’ rather nicely; and why shouldn’t we enjoy reading about what we could do to our homes, even if we know none of it will ever really materialise?

BBC Good Homes gives us a mixture of ‘real life’ case studies, in which we can learn how the likes of Helen and JP from Bristol bought a squalid two bed Victorian terrace and turned it into somewhere nice to live. Quaint.

The usual ‘product’ articles fill a great deal of the magazine’s main content. Basically these are just glorified adverts, carrying a mixture of upmarket and high street items. A great way for people who can’t be bothered to traipse around the shops to choose what they want.

Fortunately this part of the magazine does not last too long, and one then moves into rather a good Property section. Best of all, a systematic breakdown of exactly how to improve the value of your house is laid out: most popular home improvement of 1997? Double glazing. (Proves my earlier point as to how adventurous we are in our home improvements). Still, if one does have the energy and time, there are plenty of ideas in BBC Good Homes, and plenty of helpful tips (including a list of all major DIY stockists). So embrace the “spirit of change” editor Julie Savill so eagerly endorses, and don’t spill paint on the carpets…

BBC Good Homes is to be published monthly by BBC Magazines. Cover price is £2. Ad/Ed ratio is 25/75.

Reviewer: Jim Sparkes