The TV community is angrier than Judge Judy. “I have spent 30 years in Hollywood, and I’ve never experienced anything like this,” says Dreamworks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg, executive producer of NBC’s boxing show. “If imitation is the highest form of flattery, theft is the lowest form of creativity.” ABC, which two years ago was sued (unsuccessfully) because its “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” looked like “Survivor,” is equally outraged. “If I was a member of the creative community, it’d be incredibly disconcerting to me that if you [suggest a show to] Fox and they don’t buy it, they will steal it,” says Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Primetime.
Fox, while acknowledging that it knew about ABC’s show in advance, is hardly apologetic. “This is a multibillion-dollar industry. It’s my job to be as aggressive as we can,” says the network’s reality guru Mike Darnell. Not that he admits his show, which debuts this week, is inferior. Unlike “Wife Swap,” which involves elaborate rules, “Trading Spouses” is a free-for-all. And it includes the inevitable twist–each family wins $50,000, but the surrogate mom dictates how the family spends it. Sound like minor distinctions? They may protect Fox from a lawsuit. Not that Darnell is worried. “Reality is so full of imitators,” he says. “After ‘Simple Life’ hit, NBC bought the Hilton mother. ABC is doing ‘The Benefactor,’ which is based on ‘The Apprentice.’ It’s completely hypocritical of my competitors to say they’re not in the same game we are.” Maybe it’s time for Stallone to teach the folks at NBC how to counterpunch.
