Property reality show taken off air over fix claims - plus four other shows that have been staged

Lifestyle series Find My Beach House, broadcast on Channel Nine in Australia, centres on couples who have enlisted the help of host Shelley Craft to buy their 'dream beach home'.

Viewers see lots of gorgeous properties with wonderful sea views as the couples debate which of the homes Craft shows them is perfect for them.

However, it has been claimed that one couple who appeared in a recent episode already owned one of the properties which was shown to them - and they had used the show as an opportunity to try to increase the value of their home. The apparent deception was revealed in Monday's episode of Media Watch, a Australian Broadcasting Corporation show dedicated to the analysis and critique of Australian media.

According to the report, presented by Linton Besser, couple Toneya and Lochie had owned the luxury home for eight years. But, they were shown it as an option as a dream home they could buy.

Besser explained to viewers: “In fact, days after the show was broadcast, Toneya and Lochie put the house on the market – asking price $3.8million to $4.15 million. Can't buy advertising like that!” Media Watch also claimed that another luxury property featured on the show was owned by featured 'home seeker' Kirsty, who had it listed on Airbnb for $4,000-a-week.

Find My Beach House was pulled from the 9Now viewing schedule after Media Watch made enquiries.

The show is produced by Abode Entertainment, a small company specialising in lifestyle shows. In a statement shared with viewers on Media Watch, the producers admitted they “reversed engineered the house-hunting process”.

The full statement read: “Abode Entertainment produces Find My Beach House, which is licensed to Channel 9. The show is designed as light entertainment, offering viewers engaging tours of stunning homes.

“At its core, the series follows a couple's journey, adding a compelling narrative that keeps audiences invested. To enhance storytelling and ensure a satisfying viewing experience, we sometimes reverse-engineer the house-hunting process. Each episode is based on real property searches and purchases.

“In some cases, aspects of the home-buying journey have been reconstructed for storytelling purposes. This means the buyers have already purchased their home before filming, and we then showcase additional properties to capture their reactions and insights authentically. Moving forward we are making the change to include a disclaimer on each episode.”

There have been two seasons of Find My Beach House. The show debuted in 2023 under the name Beach House Hunters.

This is now the only reality show which has been at the centre of fix claims. One of the stars of conic US show Storage Wars, which sees professional buyers go to auctions and explore storage units in the hope of finding a big money-making item, claimed the show was staged.

Dave Hester, who was a buyer on the show, was fired after he filed a lawsuit accusing the show producers of fakery. He said: “"The truth is that the Defendants regularly salt or plant the storage lockers that are the subject of the auctions portrayed on the series with valuable or unusual items to create drama and suspense for the show."

The lawsuit was later settled and Hester returned to the show.

Over in the music industry, singer and pianist Adam Weiner, the frontman of rock group Low Cut Connie, alleged that he had been asked to be a contestant on the US version of singing contest The Voice. This was without needing an audition and despite already being a professional singer.

He claimed that the competition was pre-cast and that the producers decided the music style he would perform and the specific songs. He said he declined the offer. He told a local publication called the Philadelphia Magazine: “ I just don’t belong on that thing, and the stuff they told me — the hoops I was going to have to jump through — made that clear.

“I was going to have to do a lot of modern pop songs, songs that they were essentially promoting on the show. That’s not my thing. I’m not a modern pop guy. I felt really strongly that the benefits of it — the potential benefits — were very small and the potential to be very damaging was very great.”

In the UK, there are also reality shows which are very honest and upfront about their staging. Prior to episodes of long-running show The Only Way of Essex, which started in 2010, there’s a message from producers which lets viewers know that that show features “real people in modified situations, saying unscripted lines but in a structured way."

A fomer member of the cast of Made in Chelsea, Francesca 'Cheska' Hull spoke tpo Grazia and said that while the show isn’t scripted, the events that happen in the show have been engineered. “You knew the conversations you had to have”, she told the publication. She explained that producers would purposely research the cast members’ relationships - and then meddle in them to create what is described as “constructed reality”.

“The producers spoke to us on the phone for hours every week. They’d come on nights out with us. They put us in situations that created drama,” she added. “If the producers can find a hole in a relationship, they will. If there’s an ex-boyfriend in America, they’ll fly him over. It’s the same with friendships. If there are two best friends and there’s a rumour it’s not going well, they’ll do whatever they can to make it worse.”