My friend and colleague has been threatening to come up with a major TV idea for us to go pitch for over a year now. The thing about him is that he likes to take his time thinking through all the angles — whether it’s where to go eat, or how to approach a client, or in this case, the format for a breakthrough reality show. His diligence is the detail-oriented yang to my creative yin—that’s why we work well together.

A couple of weeks ago, he beamed at me, all teeth and sunshine, and said he’d cracked it: the ultimate new reality show. And from his face, I could tell that it was going to be something big.

 We’ve trained ourselves to develop television concepts by reverse-engineering cultural needs and metaphors; that’s part of the reason I attribute to our pitch success—seven sold shows in 10 straight pitches is an abnormal feat even for seasoned producers. Using the same development construct, Raj had worked through a simple premise: some of the most dearly loved musical acts of all time have been families, or relations. The Jackson Five, Mamas and Pappas, The Osmonds, Bay City Rollers, heck…even the Von Trapp family from the Sound of Music.

His idea was simple: let’s create a competition to find the next big musical family. The hook was that the judges would be former famous families themselves, along with the American public. I loved the idea, temporarily named it Rock of Ages, and decided to call my agent about it. Only to be tol that the idea had just been sold.

Turns out that just a month ago, CBS bought a new reality show called Pop Dynasty, produced by a couple of the Jacksons, with the intention of finding the next family of popstars. It was already being made.

Wonder who they’ll have as judges.