John McGivern is back with a new local travel show, coming to a new channel. The show is called “John McGivern’s Main Streets” and is set to start airing in January of 2022.
Each half-hour episode will explore main streets in the Upper Midwest, including stops in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. This is a change from McGivern’s original show, “Around the Corner,” which only focused on Wisconsin neighborhoods. On the new show, McGivern plans to check out 13 communities.
“We’re going to go 300 miles in all directions of my condo in downtown Milwaukee,” McGivern said in a news release. “I’m so excited to expand my travels to the surrounding states and meet fellow Midwesterners on their turf. I already ordered my I-PASS!”
We are so excited to be a part of this new show!
Posted by Plum Media on Wednesday, March 3, 2021
In December, McGivern announced that after nine seasons, PBS was would not be producing another season of “Around the Corner” because the station wanted to move “in another direction.” He promised fans that he was looking into new options for the show’s future.
Fans were, naturally, pretty upset. Take a look at some of the comments from Milwaukee Magazine‘s Facebook post about the news:
“I have really enjoyed the show and John McGivern’s positive persona. We need more not less programming celebrating local businesses, history and diversity.”
“Sad to see this wonderful program go. It was the best happiest journey our state has ever had.”
“Very sad to hear! We DVR his show every week. We have found out about some great places to go.”
Flash forward three months to today, and “John McGivern’s Main Streets” is now being produced by Plum Media, a Milwaukee media and events production company, for distribution throughout Wisconsin with the goal to reach TVs across the Midwest.
We’re still waiting on details about which channels will be air the show. You can watch for further announcements on the “Main Streets” Facebook page.
McGivern also wrote a series of articles about his time in different Wisconsin towns for this very magazine, which you can read here.
