Home Town is one of the series that’s ruled the HGTV airwaves since it debuted in 2016, with hosts Ben and Erin Napier using their love of old things to help them preserve homes and businesses as they renovate buildings in Laurel, Mississippi. Their show has been so successful that a number of spinoffs have launched over the years, and yet another edition is set for sometime in the future, but I’m shocked to hear why they actually won’t be able to host it.
What Home Town Spinoff Is On The Way And Why Will The Napiers Not Host It?
If you’re an HGTV fan you know that the work of Ben and Erin Napier pretty much never stops, as they really do renovations all year round. This has, of course, helped them film content for Home Town and several other franchise shows, like Home Town Takeover, which visits a new small town every season.
When CinemaBlend’s own Nick Venable spoke to the Napiers recently, before their flagship series debuts Season 10 on the 2026 TV schedule, he brought up Takeover (which saw Season 3 as one of many 2025 TV premieres) and the upcoming season, which will see the show go to…get ready for it…Canada for the first time. While the exact city hasn’t been decided on just yet, we do know that the couple actually won’t be able to host this series, as they typically do for Home Town projects. As they explained:
- Erin: Our production company is Canadian. The people who make our show, they're passionate about this Canadian takeover. But, because we are Americans, we are not legally allowed to host the show. We can only be in it as, like, guest stars.
- Ben: Yeah, a Canadian broadcast show has to be hosted by Canadian talent. 90%; I think 90 was the number. I thought it was just a majority.
Sayyyyyyy WHAT?! Seriously? Canada has a literal law about their shows needing to mostly be hosted by Canadian talent? Well, I did a little research, and it seems like this mandate comes from the Online Streaming Act, which became part of the law in 2023, and focuses, in part, on broadcasts being able to “maximize its use of Canadian creators.” I couldn’t find anything which specifies that 90% of Canadian programming has to be hosted by home-grown talent, but I have no problem taking Ben’s word for it.
Even though this seems kinda wild, at least it doesn’t mean that we won’t see Ben and Erin in the series at all. Plus, it helps that each previous season of Takeover has seen them get help from other popular HGTV hosts, so fans are already used to watching them work in tandem with other renovation experts.
While Erin added that she’s “excited to go to Canada, because I've never been” and thinks “it would be magical, in the summer especially,” Ben noted that the hosts have already been chosen, and said:
We know who it is, and I can say that we really like them. It's another husband and wife team.
Well, isn’t that just the bee’s knees? Or, the maple tree’s full tap? Fine, I don’t know what the Canadian equivalent of that saying is, and it doesn’t matter, because if Ben and Erin like the hosts then fans can be sure that we will, too.
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