Washington, DC: The way David Houts sees it, his Take This Job… was ‘one of the most successful failures’ on TV.

The A&E odd-job series didn’t outlive the 2003 season. But it led the producer/director to California, where he met the mortuary-owning family that now stars in his hit Family Plots, into the world of auto sales and a sale on the forthcoming King of Cars, and to Hawaii, where he first crossed paths with Duane Chapman. The leather-clad, lion-maned bruiser is now better known as the star of Dog the Bounty Hunter.

‘Dog had been a star in his own mind all his life. Showing up with cameras just confirmed it,’ quipped Houts, speaking at the Realscreen Summit in Washington, DC.

Dog and the recently rejuvenated A&E – which also picked up Plots and Cars – came up a lot at the three-day nonfiction conference, which brought some 1,000 attendees to the U.S. capital late last month. Those in the know agreed that shorter, personality-driven docusoaps of the Dog, Miami Ink and Rollergirls variety are finding traction with viewers.

Dog – which follows the charmingly frightening Chapman and his family/coworkers through the Hawaiian underworld – debuted to 3.1 million viewers in late 2004, quickly taking its place among the channel’s tentpole titles.

‘You know you’re going to get drama every week,’ said Robert Sharenow, A&E’s VP of nonfiction and alternative programming, who joined Houts for a one-hour seminar spotlighting the series. ‘But there’s also comedy. There’s the entire spectrum of human emotion.’

Hybridization, genre-busting and immersion were also the most-buzzed buzz words at the conference’s opening remarks. Viewers ‘want to see everything they can see, meet everyone they can meet,’ Heather Moran, a VP with National Geographic Channel, told the crowd.

Nat Geo, like A&E, is also shaking off its stodgy reputation, and is looking for more daring programs. (‘Not just exploration,’ says Moran.) Both channels, together with OLN and CBC Newsworld, sang the virtues of broader-focused programs at a Jan. 31 Summit seminar – the Ceeb’s Julie Bristow pointing to her net’s embrace of a ‘journalistic MOW’ format for its formerly dusty business magazine Venture.

The Realscreen Summit – an offshoot of realscreen magazine, run by Playback publisher Brunico Communications ­­- was preceded by a new one-day Factual Entertainment Forum, which drew some 100 delegates.

www.realscreensummit.com