"Growing Up Gotti" producer GRB Entertainment is moving from mobsters to millionaires.
Shingle is teaming with TLC on a one-hour pilot about philanthropists who anonymously perform random acts of kindness.
TLC general manager David Abraham bought the untitled project in the meeting room, GRB execs said.
"We were going to pitch it to the networks as millionaires competing to do great things for people," said senior VP of development Brant Pinvidic, who credits the net with refocusing the concept to "make the philanthropists anonymous and let the stories of the beneficiaries speak for themselves."
GRB also has received its first production order from WE: Women's Entertainment. Cabler has picked up six episodes of the series "Kari Whitman: Interior Designer to the Stars."
Pinvidic calls Whitman, a former actress and Playboy model, the Rachael Ray of the design world. Series will follow her as she makes over rooms in the homes of celebrities.
Orders build upon a busy pipeline for the company that includes a new season of A&E's real-life drama "Intervention" and TLC docudrama "Tuckerville," about former country singing star Tanya Tucker and her attempts to relaunch her music career while facing the demands of single motherhood.
GRB exec veep Michael Branton said the projects reflect the company's overall strategy to create series "that address the audience's desire to have true drama."
"None of this is superficial. It's real life," he said. TLC also has greenlit the four-part skein "Guardian Angels," profiling patients with major health problems who are aided by an "angel" whose mission it is to get them the country's top specialists. And over at the History Channel, GRB is set to produce the two-hour spec "True Caribbean Pirates."
GRB recently produced the Fox skein "Princes of Malibu," revolving around the home life of record producer David Foster. Shingle also produces "Flight Attendant School" for Travel Channel, "Full Force Nature" for Weather Channel and "Outdoor Outtakes" for OLN.
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