Fox's 'Great Champ' Still Standing

Brothers Frank, left, and Sylvester Stallone are slated to star in NBC's "The Contender." The show's producers tried to block Fox's "The Next Great Champ," co-produced with Oscar De La Hoya. (Byron Cohen -- NBC)

A Superior Court judge yesterday KO'd an attempt by Mark Burnett and DreamWorks to immediately block the launch of Fox's boxing reality series, which is scheduled to debut in three weeks.

On the other hand, Superior Court Judge Linda Lefkowitz did schedule a hearing about "The Next Great Champ." But it's set for Sept. 8 -- two days before the Fox series is scheduled to begin.

Burnett and DreamWorks, who are producing NBC's new boxing reality series, "The Contender," filed a suit earlier this week, asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order to bar Fox from airing "The Next Great Champ," which is produced by Endemol and boxer Oscar De La Hoya.

Burnett and DreamWorks claimed Fox and its producers broke laws regulating boxing in California "in an attempt to rush their ersatz copycat show to air no matter how many statutes and regulations need to be violated."

"It would be terribly damaging to the sport, to our show 'The Contender' and to all the participants if anyone were to profit from or gain an unfair advantage by breaking the law," Burnett and DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said in a statement issued Tuesday, the day the suit was filed.

Burnett also produces CBS's "Survivor," and NBC's "The Apprentice."

NBC announced it had picked up "The Contender" before Fox announced "The Next Great Champ," but Fox scheduled its series for September after NBC decided to debut its show during the November sweeps ratings race.

During Summer TV Press Tour 2004, the two networks took jabs at each other over their competing series; NBC Universal TV Group President Jeff Zucker accused Fox of piracy, telling TV critics that Fox "used to be the innovators and now they're imitators"; Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman called that a pathetic attempt on Zucker's part to distract TV critics from asking him questions about how NBC finished the last television season just one-tenth of a rating point ahead of her network among the young viewers both networks target.

NBC was not party to the suit filed on Tuesday, perhaps because it's in business with Endemol, which produces the network's successful Monday reality series "Fear Factor."

And yet, somehow, it still seems odd that Fox ads for "The Next Great Champ" can be seen during Olympics coverage on NBC-owned MSNBC, Bravo and USA networks. An NBC representative yesterday told The TV Column that those ads were placed with cable system operators, not with NBC or any of its cable networks carrying Olympics coverage. NBC has no control over the appearance of the Fox ads during its Games telecasts, the spokeswoman said.

According to the suit filed by DreamWorks and Burnett, shortly after NBC won a bidding war among the major broadcast networks for their series, "a senior Fox executive angrily told a representative of ["The Contender"] that Fox would develop and produce a competing unscripted television drama series based on the sport of boxing that would be broadcast prior to and would 'destroy' the prospects for 'The Contender' series."

Burnett and DreamWorks say their allegations are based on a report about the Fox series that was put together by the chairman of the California State Athletic Commission, whose term in office has since expired; the commission oversees the licensing and regulating of boxing promoters. The report raises questions about the show's fights; the commission scheduled a hearing on that report, which was postponed. In their suit, Burnett and DreamWorks said they had taken this step because neither the commission nor the state attorney general's office can move quickly enough to block the Fox show's debut. They said they had acted "not only as a directly interested party but as a private attorney general to enforce the laws of the State of California."

Pish-tosh, says Fox.

"In an effort to protect themselves from fair competition, it is particularly disingenuous that they are using the guise of 'protecting the public,' when in fact what they are really attempting to protect is their pocketbook," said Fox, which called the judge's decision yesterday "a significant victory for 'The Next Great Champ.' "

But DreamWorks spokesman Andy Spahn insisted that the judge's call for a Sept. 8 hearing " is a strong statement by the court that they understand the gravity and legitimacy of the issues raised by the commission."

And the producers late yesterday issued the following response to Fox's victory cry: "According to the former chairman of the State Athletic Commission, the rules that Fox has violated in its attempt to rush its show onto the air are important regulations designed for the protection of athletes in a sport notorious for corruption.

"If 'victory' to Fox means being the focus of a 150 page investigative report which cites numerous criminal violations and a superior court hearing to consider those violations, than [sic] not surprisingly, they have a very different set of standards than we do."