NBC gives Fox some flak

LOS ANGELES — Fox has a history of sinking low when it comes to the programs it airs. Recently, it's sinking low when it comes to how the network develops — or steals — the shows it puts on the air.

NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker, for one, believes Fox has gone outside the bounds of playing the TV game and is playing dirty. Unethically.

And he's not alone. Probably most of the critics gathered here agree with him.

"Quite frankly, they (Fox) used to be innovators, and now they're imitators," Zucker said. "And I think it's unfortunate what they're doing. … I think it's a sign of desperation more than anything. 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."

Fox has a long history of ripping off other networks' reality shows — "Greed" ripped off "Millionaire"; "Boot Camp" ripped off "Survivor"; "Joe Millionaire" ripped off "The Bachelor" and so on. The difference is, Fox is now ripping off other shows before they get on the air.

After NBC announced a reality/boxing show titled "The Contender," which is set to premiere in November, Fox announced it will rush a reality/boxing show titled "The Next Great Champ" to the air sometime this fall — before NBC's show gets on, it hopes. After ABC announced a September premiere for the reality show "Wife Swap," which features wives/mothers trading families for a couple of weeks, Fox quickly moved to rush "Trading Spouses" on the air.

The fact is, Fox is doing this as much — perhaps more — to blunt its rivals' new shows as it is to genuinely search for its own hits.

And it's not just Zucker and the critics who are taken aback by this. Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the founding partners in the DreamWorks SKG studio and an executive producer of "The Contender," said he's never seen anything like it in his 30 years in show business.

"The sanctity of an idea is an ideal that I was taught from the very moment I arrived in this business and something that I have respected. And in … the movie business, it is one that has been respected by everybody. It is a common ethic that is embraced," Katzenberg said. "People come into our office every day and tell us ideas, and there is a respect for that. So this is really, really disheartening. Disappointing.

"And I guess what I would say is, that if imitation is the highest form of flattery, theft is the lowest form of creativity."