After Zucker made so much about networks pirating other networks' reality shows, his network put "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search" — or, as I liked to call it, "American's Next Top Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model" — on the air. The irony of that wasn't lost on UPN Entertainment president Dawn Ostroff or anybody else.

"It was surprising that the network, NBC, who would say about Fox that they used to be innovators and now they're imitators are actually doing the same thing," Ostroff said.

But the controversy did make for some entertainment last summer. It's always fun to watch TV network executives start attacking each other.

It's not just the shows and ratings and advertising and revenue that comes into play, it's the egos. And the egos of the people you don't see behind the scenes running television are, more often than not, bigger than the egos of the people you see on your TV.

Network chiefs love to take shots at each other. And TV critics (like yours truly) find it highly entertaining.

It's not a question of if network chiefs will diss each other, it's a question of how.

Stay tuned . . .

IN THE END, the fight over "Wife Swap" and "Trading Spouses" actually meant more than the one over "The Contender" and "The Next Great Champ."

The former pair managed to attract a few viewers; the latter pair both bombed big time in the ratings.

From the beginning, I speculated that no matter how good the shows were — and "Contender" was a much better show than "Champ" — the fact that American TV viewers have shown so little interest in televised boxing for many years would doom them both. And it did.

I hope the network honchos fight about something more interesting this year.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com