TV Creativity 2 comments


Kudos to Fox for pointing out the obvious:

NBC and ABC have accused Fox of stealing their ideas, and Fox has fired back, saying it’s just part of the game.
Lawrence Lessig suggests that this copycat activity will make for better shows:
Competition over derivatives only makes the derivatives better.
I suppose there is something to this argument. Especially when considering the starting points:
NBC won the rights to “The Contender,” a reality show about boxing. Two months later, Fox launched a similar show called “The Next Great Champ.”
ABC has a program called “Wife Swap,” in which two wives switch houses. Fox then launched a series called “Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy.”
And who can forget “Popstars” and “Making the Band,” which all came before the even-more successful “American Idol”?
Yes, the latter may have been superior to its precursors and some of you may like this stuff but I’m quite happy to have temptation so dramatically reduced by the fine quality of this material. It seems not that many years ago that I watched 2-3 shows every night (Saturday usually being the most difficult to find something interesting) and now its down to 2-3 shows per week and shrinking.
I must admit to a bit of prevarication here. Over the past two weeks I have spent a couple hours daily watching OLN’s somewhat flawed Tour de France coverage (of which, more in another post later this week).


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