Contemplating old furniture and oddities from the attic sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry — hardly the stuff of prime-time entertainment. Yet Antiques Roadshow, in which people present their household treasures for inspection by eagle-eyed appraisers, has become PBS's top-rated show, attracting some fifteen million viewers weekly. Enter Dekkers Davidson (MBA '82), CEO of Antiques America, an online company (antiquesamerica.com) that brings together buyers and sellers in this $25 billion market and wants to be the leading online destination for the antiques community.

Davidson's company features a number of Antiques Roadshow's authorities as online hosts, and the show's creator and former executive producer has also signed on to develop Internet concepts and broadcast programming. Other members of Davidson's staff include antiques experts with backgrounds at prominent museums and auction houses.

As the Woodstock generation increasingly limits its rockin' to the front-porch variety, Davidson notes that one big target market has become "baby boomers moving into prime antiquing age."

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