On January 28th NBC announced it was pulling its new reality series The Baby Borrowers from its mid-season schedule and replacing it with My Dad's Better Than Your Dad, a new family competition series. This makes Baby Borrowers the second unscripted, kid-centric series to drop into scheduling limbo. CBS's Kid Nation 2 is also in the can and ready to air, but both shows are being held back despite the demand for new programming created by the 3 month old writers strike. What's up?

NBC's The Baby Borrowers is a version of a UK show that premiered on BBC 3 in January, 2007. The premise was controversial from the start: 5 teenage couples attempt to look after a baby (between 6 and 11 months) for three days, then a toddler, a pre-teen, teenagers and finally an elderly person. Pundits slammed the concept as child exploitation and a significant risk to the babies and toddlers involved. The criticism was muted by the revelation that the teens were "under 24-hour supervision by nannies and the real parents who are stationed next door, watching via monitor, and able to step in at any time."

CBS, anticipating the same type of criticism for Kid Nation, said nothing about its series until a season was in the can. The moment the press release for the series went out, media criticism of the premise began, exacerbated by an insider leak that one of the Kids required medical attention during shooting after drinking bleach. The controversy mounted as the premier date approached, with the New York Times weighing in and various state governments announcing they were examining their child labor laws to prevent Kid Nation 2 or similar series from shooting in their jurisdiction. What wasn't reported was that Kid Nation 2 was cast before episode 1 of season 1 had even aired and was already in post-production by the time the Kid Nation season 1 finale aired Dec. 12th.

Why, at a time when new unscripted programming is desperately needed to fill in the scheduling gaps created by a now 3 month long halt in the production of scripted shows, are these 2 shows still not scheduled to air?

Could it be ratings? CBS has never officially renewed Kid Nation. The show was consistently beaten by Deal or No Deal and the one true scripted hit of the fall 2007 season, Pushing Daisies. That said, ratings can't have anything to do with NBC's decision to hold back a show that has never aired.

Could it be quality? If it were, we'd know - test audiences have notoriously loose lips.

Could it be strategy? Probably. Because both series appeal to the same demographic, the schedulers may be playing chicken, with NBC wanting to run Baby Borrowers against KD2 in an effort kill it off for good. Also, the original UK Baby Borrowers was accompanied by two spin offs; The Baby Borrowers: Compilation, a clip show that ran highlights from the previous week, and The Baby Borrowers: Friends and Family, which put the camera on the teenage couples' loved ones for their reactions.

Whatever it is, there is an audience for both, and one can't imagine both series won't see the light of day sometime before the end of the May sweeps.

Lyle Burwell, President, VPTV, The Directory of Viewer Participation TeleVision. VPTV tracks application and audition information for all North American, English, viewer participation programming.