LONDON (Brand Republic) - Fox Broadcasting, the News Corporation-owned US television network, is to be sued by rival US broadcaster CBS over claims that Fox鈥檚 latest reality TV show, Boot Camp, is a rip-off of the US TV smash hit Survivor.
CBS and the production company behind the show, Survivor Productions, filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit yesterday Monday against Fox and others.
The lawsuit states that Boot Camp even had a former Survivor production executive to help produce the 鈥渞ip-off鈥 show. Boot Camp is due to begin broadcasting in the UK on News Corp鈥檚 BSkyB on April 17.
The lawsuit details a list of similarities between the two shows, such as the voting-off of contestants at the end of each episode to the use of short progress interviews with the contestants in between the main action.
Boot Camp鈥檚 main point of difference is its military situation. Instead of chasing the chance to join the US Army, contestants are chasing a $500,000 cash prize. Survivor, which offered a prize of a cool $1m (£0.69m), was set on an island, but both were about harsh conditions that called on the contestants to work together and eliminate each other to win.
Survivor proved to be the undisputed winner among the current rash of reality TV shows, beating both the US version of Big Brother and Temptation Island squarely in the ratings. CBS is already airing Survivor 2 - Survivor: The Australian Outback.
Survivor 2 is proving even more successful than first time around, with each show drawing an average audience of 30m viewers up by around 30% on its first run.
LMNO, the production company behind Boot Camp, pitched the show to CBS in the summer in an effort to capitalise on the success of Survivor. But with Survivor 2 already in the works, CBS rejected the idea.
According to the lawsuit, 鈥淭hey described a military, 鈥榖asic training鈥 environment, in which drill instructors would be a significant source of stress for the contestants and would also direct them through various missions.鈥