“Shark Tank” (ABC)
“Pawn Stars” (ABC)
TENDING ALERT: “Pawn Stars,” (top) “Shark Tank” (center) and “Celebrity Apprentice” (bottom) are hot. (
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Suddenly, entrepreneurs are TV’s new Idols.
As singing competitions shed viewers, a new breed of reality show is striking it rich.
“Coming out of the recession, people like to see other people beating the system and living the American dream,” says Brent Montgomery, producer of “Pawn Stars” and ABC’s new sports memorabilia series “Ball Boys.”
No business-themed program is hotter right now than ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
Now in its third season — and with the addition of grinning billionaire Mark Cuban — the venture-capital show has seen ratings jump nearly every week this winter.
That’s one reason business news channel CNBC recently hired a top program exec from VH1 — Jim Ackerman, who developed programming like “Celebrity Fit Club” and “Best Week Ever” — to revamp its evening lineup.
The business channel is trying to solve a problem it’s had from the very beginning — people turned it off after the market closed.
At first, bringing a VH1 guy into CNBC seemed silly. But now under pressure to increase profits, the business channel is moving quickly into prime time with the only kind of show that makes sense: business reality.
“We were in there a year ago,” Montgomery says, “and could see that they were starting to look into this world.”
While established producers scramble to come up with a new spin on “The Apprentice” or “Undercover Boss,” first-timers are trying to break in with new business-show ideas.
Beth Stolarczyk, a former cast member for “The Real World: Los Angeles,” recently completed filming a pilot for a show about stay-at-home moms who try to bring their inventions to market in between fixing dinner and driving the kids to school.
“A lot of moms will identify with it because they want to start their own business so they can work their schedules around their kids,” she says.
There’s even a concept for a kids version of “Shark Tank” being developed by a group of teenagers who sold their rubber charm bracelet company to the sharks earlier this season.
“I think people want to see it re-enforced that dreams can and do come true,” Cuban told The Post yesterday.
“Our entrepreneurs aren’t born with silver spoons. They are normal people who have worked extra hard to turn their businesses into something.
“The ‘Sharks’ aren’t the role models, the entrepreneurs are and everyone cheers for them,” he says.