Reups and rollouts for ABC reality
Remodeling show, 'Swap' nab episode requests
The Alphabet's alternative series department had a busy Wednesday: Net also greenlit 12 more episodes of the "Extreme Makeover" mothership, bringing it to a total of 22 segs this season, and ordered seven episodes of "The Swap," a relationship entry based on smash U.K. series "Wife Swap."
"Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition" will follow a group of designers and workmen as they manage to completely renovate an entire home, racing to finish in seven days a job that would normally take seven months.
Families -- nominated for the makeover by friends, relatives or co-workers -- will move out of the house and remain sequestered until the big "Trading Spaces"-style reveal.
Speaking of "Spaces," that hit TLC series' star carpenter, Ty Pennington, will host "Home Edition."
Endemol USA is behind "Home Edition," which will be exec produced by John DeMol and Tom Forman.
"I've been wanting to do a home makeover show for the last year and a half," said ABC alternative series/specials senior VP Andrea Wong. "We've been noodling on how to bring it to network primetime, how to amp it up and bring it to ABC. With the success of 'Extreme Makeover,' we looked at the elements that make that show successful, and said, 'Let's try to do this with a home.' "
As for the mothership, ABC gave "Extreme Makeover" a full-season pickup thanks to the show's solid Thursday night perf. It has averaged a 3.0 rating/7 share among adults 18-49 in its slot -- more than double ABC's numbers in the slot last year (1.4/3).
"This show is the unsung hero of our schedule," Wong said. "It's done incredibly well for us in the worst time period on our schedule."
As part of the pickup, ABC has tapped "EM" exec producers Chuck Bangert and Lou Gorfain, and their New Screen Concepts shingle, to produce two stand-alone one-hour specials to air on the network this season.
One will serve as a reunion special, showing what happen to participants in the months following their makeover. The second special will go behind the scenes of "Extreme Makeover" and show how the diets, the nose jobs and the hair coloring -- among other things -- actually get done.
Howard Schultz and Lighthearted Entertainment also exec produce "Extreme Makeover," which first launched last year as a series of specials.
Then there's "The Swap," which ABC said would air in either spring or summer 2004. Exec producer Michael Davies is behind the U.S. version, which comes from RDF Media ("Junkyard Wars").
Show follows two women as they switch households for 10 days. The first five days, the contestants adapt to their host family's lifestyle -- but in the second five, the women impose their will over how their adopted household should operate.
A pilot has already been shot of "The Swap," in which the mom from a New Age/vegeterian Los Angeles family swaps places with the mother of a suburban, Italian family from the Northeast.
"We made the pilot and just loved it," Wong said. "It's funny, it's dramatic."
Wong said "Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition" and "Swap" reflected the ABC escapist/wish-fulfillment brand of reality as seen in "Extreme Makeover" and "The Bachelor" franchises.
"They have those two elements absolutely essential for a great reality series: strong characters and intense dramatic storylines, achieved without tricks or deceptions."
(Josef Adalian contributed to this report.)
