Plagiarised Programmes

Rupaul's Drag Race borrows heavily from America's Next Top Model.

Surprised you've all missed the most blatant rip off..
Strictly Come Dancing > Dancing On Ice

In regards to Steve Williams' comment about Take That spawning other bands like Boyzone, Take That IIRC was created because New Kids on the Block were hugely successful in the late 80s.

With pop music, often groups are made because music producers spot gaps in the market, the success of Take That and the Spice Girls in the 90s spawned lots of boybands and girl groups but no mixed groups so producers like Pete Waterman and Simon Fuller decided to create Steps and S Club 7 respectively and that in turn spawned more mixed group which didn't do nearly as well.

Worth remembering back at the turn of the Millennium you had Planet 24/Castaway insisting Big Brother was a rip-off of Survivor, even though their original formats had very little in common other than being early reality shows. Indeed 20 years on with all the shows that have followed it is even more noticeable how different they are.

I know this isn’t the news forum, but can RTE News’ mid-1990s virtual studio (aka the “Green Machine”) get an honourable mention here? To say that it and the graphics that came with it were “inspired” by the BBC News 1990s virtual look is putting it mildly.

I'm a Celebrity while not a rip off did take inspiration from Survivor but has managed to become its own thing,

Pop Idol was on the same channel as Popstars in this country, but the similarity led to a legal settlement, including not allowing Pop in the title of the Idol format when used in other countries - hence American Idol, etc.

Speaking of Pop Idol, Simon Cowell ended up being sued by Simon Fuller as the latter thought The X Factor was too similar to Idol but they later settled out of court.

Hughie Green tried to protect the whole format, having apparently invented Opportunity Knocks. But he lost his legal action apparently.

Linked to that, there was also the unfortunate case of S4C’s Wow Ffactor which was very big for the channel for a few years. The show completely ripped off Pop Idol and preceded X Factor , but basically had to end when the latter began due to the way it subsequently would have just looked like an X Factor rip-off due to the extra similarities in title and concept of looking for the “Wow/X Factor”.

Incidentally, that was the show which gave singer Duffy her first step up in the industry. She came second in the first series.

And of course they had New Faces, first alongside them on ITV in the 70s, and then both were revived in the late 80s with New Faces on ITV and Opportunity Knocks on the BBC.

I remember somebody from ITV emailing UKGameshows.com asking us not to mention the painfully obvious fact that their Great British [whatever] Tests were an attempt to ape the BBC's Test The Nation. I had no qualms about ignoring that plea.