HGTV's New Year's Day festivities featured live, commercial free coverage of the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade and an all-day Twitter party that allowed fans to tweet along with their favorite HGTV stars. New Year’s Day on HGTV began with live coverage of the Rose Parade 2014 and was hosted by HGTV’s popular Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott, and Emmy® Award-winning entertainment journalist Nancy O’Dell. Reporting live from the parade route was DIY Network’s Josh Temple (House Crashers), who offered unique street-side perspectives and spectator interviews. And following parade coverage, HGTV served up back-to-back premiere episodes of Hawaii Life, Caribbean Life, Beachfront Bargain Hunt and Island Hunters, as well as the premiere of HGTV Dream Home 2014. Together, these shows served as strong enticements for viewers to stay with HGTV all day and engage with their favorite network stars. The lifestyle media brand looked to ring in the New Year the way left the old one - with a record ratings performance. HGTV achieved its highest-rated and most-watched year ever in 2013 among viewers P25-54. The network’s programming, which includes such highly-rated favorites as Property Brothers, Buying & Selling, Rehab Addict, Cousins Undercover, Brother Vs. Brother, and of course, the popular Love It or List It and House Hunters franchises, continues to appeal to audiences of all types. In fact, House Hunters and House Hunters International delivered their highest P25-54 ratings in five years, while Property Brothers and Love It or List It each earned their highest rated episode ever in 2013!HGTV's New Year's Day festivities, which featured live, commercial free coverage of the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade and an all-day Twitter party that allowed fans to tweet along with their favorite HGTV stars, generated enough buzz to exceed the network's best weekly social media performance. On January 1, #HGTVNewYear and #HGTV received more than 26,500 mentions, @hgtv received more than 11,000 mentions and Rose Parade 2014 hosts, Property Brothers Drew Scott and Jonathan Scott, received more than 5,000 mentions each. In addition, a total of 1.96 million people saw Tweets about the Rose Parade on HGTV, making it the top-ranked cable program for the day based on Twitter TV Unique Audience (excluding sports). HGTV also ranked in the top 10 by Twitter TV Unique Audience among all cable networks for the day according to Nielsen SocialGuide. Throughout the day, fans asked their favorite HGTV stars questions and got advice about everything from renovation and decorating to New Year's resolutions. More than 50 network stars participated in the Twitter party, including the Property Brothers; Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri, aka the Cousins; Rehab Addict's Nicole Curtis and Love It or List It duos, Hilary Farr/David Visentin and Jillian Harris/Todd Talbot. The network also showcased the tweets of more than 1,000 fans live on the air and received thousands of positive responses from fans, including one that said: "@hgtv all the tweets today have been almost as entertaining as the shows #HGTVNewYear." Thanks to the excellent participation from both network hosts and viewers, #HGTVNewYear was a Top-10 trending topic on Twitter throughout New Year’s Day. Not only were the day’s activities a huge social media success, but they performed wonderfully on-air as well. HGTV ranked #1 among all ad supported cable networks on New Year’s Day. The Rose Parade 2014 provided the perfect backdrop for HGTV’s first live social media event. The full day of premiere episodes for newer hit series such as Island Hunters, Beachfront Bargain Hunt, Caribbean Life and Living Alaska, helped HGTV attract more than 17.4 million total viewers!
