|
|
|
Printer friendly format
A&E Demolishes Flip This House
A&E, whose Flip This House's second season premier revolted countless viewers, further enraged their audience by removing the FTH page and threads from the Network's Web site. The FTH message boards became inoperative as of mid-day July 25.
Viewer complaints about Network "censorship" first arose three weeks ago as FTH, featuring San Antonio's Montelongos, was broadcast. Message boards claimed that A&E deleted pages of negative comments that flooded the FTH boards."As Mulder would say, the truth is out there. And no matter how many posts from numerous members A&E deletes, at least they know that we know how horrible it was. Delete away, we'll just keep posting new messages,' wrote All Flip and No Lip.
Regardless of the speculated reasons--A&E's inability to handle the show's negativity and because of Trademark Property's lawsuit--yanking the discussion boards only added fuel to the outraged audience's fire.
Compounding viewers' dislike of the new show was the feeling that A&E disrespected their audience by failing to publicize the new cast, thereby intentionally duping their viewers.
Mac2112 wrote, "Even though I wouldnt allow this new team to flip my burger, the worst part is that we were ambushed by A&E. They left Richard and his team on the website and the commercials were blocky and employed the use of quick-cuts to prevent you from understanding that there was a new team...."
"It is obvious that A&E knew the San Antonio people sucked because all the commercials have led us to believe that Trademark was still on board. If they had any faith in the new crew, they would have at least put them in an advertisement," lyndzi 20 wrote.
Included among those bashing the Montelongos--"DarkFlame," a San Antonio associate.
"I'm a member of the local Real Estate Investors' Association, as are the Montelongos. They've even spoken at one of the meetings. A&E even taped the meeting, but I hope none of it sees the airwaves. However, what we saw in last night's show was not the stuff that of which most of our local rehabbers are made..."
On July 27, HoustonRealNews contacted Dan Silberman, Senior Director of Publicity at A&E, for comment about the vanishing FTH page.
"I'm not aware of it. It's the first I heard of it," he said, agreeing to get back to us for further comment.
"We can't comment because of pending litigation," Silberman later remarked.
HoustonRealNews found it strange that the senior publicity director was unaware of the defunct page, yet Departure Films apparently knew enough about the situation to comment.
"A&E is updating it to feature the new cast," Liz Tracy, a Departure Films Producer, explained.
The board, however, disappeared two days before. So, how long does it take to update a site? And to the viewers' point, why didn't A&E update the information before the new season began? (A new FTH page was up on July 28th, but without a discussion board.)
Despite pleas to bring Trademark back to A&E, viewers will need to tune in to TLC to see their beloved Richard and crew. David Schaefer, publicist at Discovery, told us that "the project will not be aired until 2007."
Since the show is still in development, no further details, other than what the press release reports, is currently available.
Flip's Future
The fate of FTH had seemed uncertain. Some viewers believed FTH's second season was a one-shot flop, Tracy said the Atlanta team will appear and that the two teams will alternate each week.
The San Antonio team has subsequently aired its second episode - dispelling the "one and done" myth.
The Montelongos declined our request for a statement regarding their reviews.
For those who need to vent, a few FTH message boards have been created. Most of them are independent boards, including one at aimoo.com, flipthislawsuit.com, a site to track Trademark's lawsuit, and imdb.com.
Until July 31, there had been a discussion board set up under A&E's Sell This House.
It was called Sorry...but shame on A&E.
Want to guess what happened to that site?###
|
|
|
