Antiques Roadshow is the American version of the British Broadcasting Corporation program of the same name, which premiered as a special in 1977[1] and began airing as a regular series in the United Kingdom in 1979.

[1] The public television station in Boston, Massachusetts, WGBH-TV, created the American version in 1996 under a license from the BBC.

He was followed by contemporary art expert Dan Elias, who took over after Jussel's departure and hosted the program from 2001 to 2003 (Seasons 5 through 7).

During the first 19 seasons (1997–2015), each episode began with an on-camera introduction by the host (Chris Jussel, Dan Elias, Lara Spencer, and Mark L. Walberg) followed by footage of the taping location while the host identified the location — a hotel ballroom, convention center, civic arena, or similar facility — in a voiceover.

In the show's early seasons, the episodes ended with the Antiques Roadshow crew getting ready to turn the studio lights off and taking down the set.

Although the conventional and "over-the-shoulder" appraisals and the Feedback Booth continued as before, the show adopted a new logo, new graphics for its opening and closing credits, and a new set, and the role of the host was reduced significantly.

[3] The mid-show field segment featuring the host and an appraiser at a local museum or historic site was dropped.

[2] Bemko explained in 2018 that the new format, in combination with the changes made for Season 20 three years earlier, was designed to refresh the show and improve its pacing.

Coral Peña took over the job of performing each episode's voiceovers in Season 24, broadcast in 2020, and she is billed as the show's narrator rather than its host.

Each episode concluded with a "Missing Masterpieces" segment in which an Antiques Roadshow appraiser told a legendary story of a great object that had disappeared.

[8] In the September 7 episode, former Antiques Roadshow host Chris Jussel provided the story for the final "Missing Masterpieces" segment.

[7] On January 3, 2020, the spinoff series Antiques Roadshow Recut premiered on PBS,[9] serving as one of the replacement programs for Nightly Business Report, which aired its final episode in December 2019.

Each spring and summer — except in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation — the Antiques Roadshow production team and appraisers make an annual tour, visiting various cities in the United States.

Most filming in these venues could be accomplished by placing cameras in a central location and simply spinning them around to capture various appraisals.

[1] In 2017, when during the 22nd season the show moved to taping at museums and historic sites and began recording outdoor appraisals for the first time, production became more complicated.

[1] Upon arrival on filming day, each visitor checks in at a designated time and is directed to a line to wait in to see an appraiser who can assess his or her object.

[1] They are volunteers; Antiques Roadshow does not pay them for their services, nor does it compensate them for any of their travel expenses, providing them only with a free breakfast and lunch on each filming day.

[2][1] Appraisers thus play a vital role in determining which objects are filmed for potential use in an Antiques Roadshow episode.

[1] Given the amount of money they spend on travel to participate in an Antiques Roashow tour — often over $10,000 in 2019 — and the lack of compensation for them by the show, the appraisers have an incentive to get a return on their investment by finding television-worthy objects and getting on camera in the hope of benefiting from the resulting national exposure.

[11] In 1999, a jury awarded a descendant of Confederate Army General George Pickett a US$800,000  (equivalent to $1.5 million in 2023) judgment against military artifacts dealer Russ Pritchard III, who appeared on Antiques Roadshow as an appraiser, for fraudulently undervaluing Pickett memorabilia, purchasing the items, and then reselling them at a large profit.

[12] In March 2000, however, revelations that both Pritchard and George Juno — another military artifacts dealer and Antiques Roadshow appraiser and Pritchard's business partner at the company American Ordnance Preservation Association — had staged a fraudulent appraisal in 1997 led the show to sever ties with them.

[12][13] In March 2001, the two men were accused of using their Antiques Roadshow appearances to establish a reputation as experts in American Civil War artifacts and memorabilia by making phony appraisals designed to lure unsuspecting owners of Civil War antiques to do business with their company, subsequently defrauding their victims of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Forty-nine U.S. states (all but Wyoming), the District of Columbia, and one Canadian province have hosted Antiques Roadshow tour stops.