US TV
US network FOX has announced that its highly-unoriginal reality series Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy will begin airing from next week.
The show will begin two months before the American version of Wife Swap premieres on the ABC network.
FOX has come under fire from many quarters over the series, which is essentially identical to the Wife Swap format, where two mothers swap families for a fixed time period to see what they can learn about their lives. Indeed, even the name is uncannily similar; the US version of Wife Swap originally had the working title Trading Mums.
The network has also been blasted for its new reality boxing series The Next Great Champ, which was announced shortly after NBC's The Contender.
"I think it's really upsetting. I think it's bad for the business. And I don't think it's right," said ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson at the TV critics summer press tour Monday. "In terms of the ripping off or cloning or whatever you want to call it, I'll put it this way. If I was a member of the creative community, it would be incredibly disconcerting to me that if you take a show, a pitch, into FOX, and they can't, don't or decide not to buy it, they will steal it. Plain and simple."
McPherson's comments echo those of NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker, who said at the weekend: "Quite frankly, they used to be innovators, and now they're imitators. 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."
Trading Spouses premieres Tuesday, July 20 at 8pm on FOX.
The show will begin two months before the American version of Wife Swap premieres on the ABC network.
FOX has come under fire from many quarters over the series, which is essentially identical to the Wife Swap format, where two mothers swap families for a fixed time period to see what they can learn about their lives. Indeed, even the name is uncannily similar; the US version of Wife Swap originally had the working title Trading Mums.
The network has also been blasted for its new reality boxing series The Next Great Champ, which was announced shortly after NBC's The Contender.
"I think it's really upsetting. I think it's bad for the business. And I don't think it's right," said ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson at the TV critics summer press tour Monday. "In terms of the ripping off or cloning or whatever you want to call it, I'll put it this way. If I was a member of the creative community, it would be incredibly disconcerting to me that if you take a show, a pitch, into FOX, and they can't, don't or decide not to buy it, they will steal it. Plain and simple."
McPherson's comments echo those of NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker, who said at the weekend: "Quite frankly, they used to be innovators, and now they're imitators. 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."
Trading Spouses premieres Tuesday, July 20 at 8pm on FOX.
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