Real estate reality TV is a genre unto itself, with hundreds of shows about residential sales, design, flipping, demolition and the sustainability of workplace romance while in escrow.
The genre is about to expand into the commercial sector for the first time with The Real Estate Commission, a new docuseries airing on A&E with Albany, New York-based broker, investor and developer Todd J. Drowlette.
Courtesy of Interdependence PR
The show follows his firm, Titan Commercial Realty Group, as it negotiates real deals for real clients with real money on the line.
“Commercial real estate is a trillion-dollar industry that nobody’s talking about,” Drowlette said. “People use it every day. They don’t even realize they’re using it. Now it’s time to talk about it.”
He felt the time was right for a reality show about commercial real estate, with the economy dominating headlines and high-profile business people reaching near-celebrity status.
“Donald Trump was The Apprentice. He was a TV guy, but always in his heart he’s going to be a real estate guy,” Drowlette said. “Then you have Tesla and Elon Musk. There are so many quote-unquote ‘business guys’ now in politics and a huge amount of media coverage talking about business and billionaires.”
The show isn’t just about high-profile deals in high-end markets. Many of the on-screen deals take place in secondary markets, from upstate New York to Pennsylvania to North Carolina. Drowlette seeks to demystify commercial real estate for the average person and show viewers how the business affects everyone, not just the 1%.
Originally conceived just after the pandemic hit, Drowlette said the show is very much inspired by the issues that arose from its fallout. Lockdowns upended his business overnight. The shock wave that reverberated across the commercial real estate sector impacted not just industry professionals like him but also the regular people Drowlette hopes the show will reach.
“The business affects everybody’s real life. But they didn’t realize it until people were working from home,” he said. “Now all these restaurants are failing because they don’t have a lunchtime business anymore, they don’t have happy hour anymore because people aren’t at work.”
He wants to highlight the ubiquity of commercial real estate.
“When I stop at Starbucks or Dunkin’ or 7 Brew and I buy that cup of coffee in the morning? That’s commercial real estate,” he said. “When Amazon delivers this package, guess what. That was in a warehouse before it got shipped here. That’s commercial real estate.”
In development, questions arose about the lifeblood of reality TV: drama. Would a show about commercial real estate have any?
“I just laughed. Just start rolling the cameras,” Drowlette said.
“I’m advising people that if they’re wrong, they lose millions of dollars. If they’re right, they make millions of dollars. Trust me, people will have meltdowns. Things will go really well, really badly and everywhere in between. I always say every commercial real estate deal dies three times before it happens.”
It is not just about the money. Drowlette emphasizes the human element. He aims to dispel the notion that commercial real estate is all about billionaire tycoons out for profit.
“That’s 10% of the population. Ninety percent of people, yes, they’re trying to make a profit, but also they want to survive,” Drowlette said. “They want to provide quality, they want to provide value, and they want to have successful customers and employees.”
This isn’t the first time CRE has broken into the entertainment world. In 2022, a video game called The Tenants sought to teach people about the realities of being a landlord.
The Real Estate Commission will air beginning Oct. 12 on A&E.