THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: TV Home Shows Flip Scripts
Monday, July 25, 2011 | Post a Comment Amid Real-Estate Bust, Reality Programs Turn Attention to Foreclosure Deals
'Spike TV's 'Flip Men,' top, is among the new shows about buying foreclosed homes. Where are the hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes in the U.S. ending up? On reality television.
This summer and fall, several TV networks are unveiling reality shows about buying foreclosed houses as a way to reinvent the popular "house flipping" formula, which proliferated in cable programming alongside the real-estate boom.
In September, Viacom Inc.'s Spike TV will premiere a new show called "Flip Men" about an entrepreneurial duo living in Salt Lake City who try to make big bucks in the foreclosure market. Later this summer, Bravo's hit reality show about house-flipper-turned-designer Jeff Lewis, called "Flipping Out," takes a personal turn in its fifth season when it shows Mr. Lewis wrangling with lenders in a quest to buy a foreclosed house to live in. A&E Television Networks, a joint venture among Walt Disney Co., Hearst Corp. and Comcast Corp.'s NBC Universal, recently tapped a former "Survivor" contestant to star in a new show later this year about flipping houses—some foreclosed—in Houston. And DIY Network, a division of Scripps Networks Interactive Inc., has a show in development about flipping foreclosed houses that could air in 2012.
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