Flip this TV genre

After catching a portion of some TV show somewhere in the Midwest a few days ago where a late-twentysomething was showing an early-twentysomething the ropes while tooling around in a black Hummer H2, this LA Times story hits the nail squarely on the head.

Home shows see need to retool
The bubble hasn't burst yet for popular cable programs,
but market woes spur some shifts in focus.

No one has been more swept up in the euphoria of the overheated housing market of the last few years than cable television networks.

First came "Property Ladder" and "Flip That House" on Discovery's TLC and "Flip This House" on the competing A&E Network. As home values soared, so did the number of real estate programs. TLC came up with "Real Estate Pros," and A&E later served up "Sell This House." Bravo jumped into the act this summer, introducing "Flipping Out."

But what happens to all of these house-flipping shows now that the real estate market seems to be tanking?

"The television equivalent of 'location, location, location' is 'timing, timing, timing,' " said TV historian Tim Brooks. "Now that the bust has come, now that the wave has passed, some of these shows might be in trouble."
...
Robert Sharenow, a senior vice president at A&E in charge of nonfiction programming, predicted that programs such as "Flip This House" would endure beyond "this hiccup in the market."

"The show is kind of recession-proof," Sharenow said. "If there are more foreclosures, that will make flipping opportunities more readily available. Even if the profit margins are slimmer, there will still be plenty of challenges and pressure and drama. It turns the heat up on the drama when times are tougher."

Uh, Robert, it might be a bit more than a "hiccup" and, if you're really looking for a "recession proof" theme, you should probably look into health care or prisons.