It'll be a fight to the start

Instead of a fight to the finish, it will be a fight to the start for NBC and Fox.

NBC and reality-TV Uber producer Mark Burnett have been working for months on the boxing equivalent of "Survivor" or "The Apprentice." Now Fox has announced similar plans.

Gee, which network will get it show on the air first?

Burnett has enlisted Sylvester Stallone as the host of "The Contender," a show that will feature not only a bunch of boxers fighting it out — literally — but real-life ex-champs George Foreman and Sugar Ray Leonard. But he's been taking his time, and NBC had no plans to air the show before early 2005.

Maybe that will change since Fox has announced "The Next Great Champ," produced by Oscar De La Hoya's company, which will feature a bunch of boxers fighting it out.

Fox, you may recall, is the network that answered ABC's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" with "Greed." That answered CBS's "Survivor" with "Boot Camp." That answered ABC's "The Bachelor" with "Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska," "Joe Millionaire," "Mr. Personality," and "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire."

You see, it's actually easy to "develop" new shows.

"APPRENTICE" TIMES THREE? NBC, which has already ordered two more go-rounds of "The Apprentice" for next season, is talking to Burnett about doing a separate series that follows the first "Apprentice" winner, Bill Rancic, as he goes to work overseeing construction of a 90-story building in Chicago.

Which wouldn't be surprising, given that NBC has so few successful ideas that it tries to milk them as much as possible. (Think "Law & Order" and its two — soon to be three — spinoffs.)

However, Burnett and NBC's partnership on "The Restaurant" didn't work out that well. It was a ratings disappointment Monday night.

BYE-BYE, BROKAW: It's official — Tom Brokaw's last day anchoring the "NBC Nightly News" is Dec. 1. Brian Williams takes over Dec. 2.

Brokaw announced last year he'd step down after two decades on the job following the November elections, but no date was given.

This might be a bigger deal if network newscasts were as big a deal as they were when Walter Cronkite retired from CBS in 1981, but in today's world of 24-hour TV news, they're not.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com