Fox quick to latch onto competitors’ ideas

Mon., July 19, 2004

From wire reports

Fox will debut its unscripted show “Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy” on Tuesday — a full two months before the show from which it appears to be cloned, ABC’s “Wife Swap,” hits the airwaves.

“Trading Spouses” is at the center of a simmering controversy over network poaching of reality formats.

Fox announced it was developing “Trading Spouses” only after ABC unveiled “Wife Swap” to advertisers in May and received a positive response. And it launched plans for a boxing reality show, “The Next Great Champ,” after NBC announced a similar series, “The Contender.”

“Quite frankly, they (Fox) used to be innovators, and now they’re imitators,” Jeff Zucker, president of the NBC Universal Television Group, complained to television critics.

“It’s just bad for the business and it’s bad for everybody, and I don’t think that all is fair in love and television,” Zucker added.

But Fox entertainment chief Gail Berman said repetition is simply a normal part of television programming.

“There are two boxing shows. There are three Amy Fisher movies. There are two Diana movies. This is the way television works,” she said. “There’s nothing new about it.”

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