News Corp.'s introduction of the Fox Reality Channel has turned unscripted programming into a competitive cable genre. The newly minted Fox Reality Channel will compete with at least two independent ventures eyeing the same unscripted turf: the nascent Reality Central, backed by several cable industry veterans, and Reality TV, a foreign channel that secured carriage in the United States on EchoStar Communications' Dish Network satellite platform late last year. Fox Reality Channel will get help from Fox's other cable networks not only to leverage them for distribution but shared back-office resources ranging from affiliate sales to finance.

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