Paige Davis

However, both Davis and the network insisted there was no connection between the controversies and the format change, which the network described as a decision to take the show "in a new creative direction." Davis subsequently signed a multi-year agreement with television syndication company King World Productions/CBS to develop new scripted and reality programming, including a deal to co-star in a daytime television program with interior designer Nate Berkus, but nothing came to air.

TLC announced in November 2007 that Davis would return as host of Trading Spaces in January 2008, along with others formerly associated with the program. Reports on the announcement published in the New York Post and in Davis' hometown paper the Philadelphia Inquirer remarked on the earlier "bad press" in 2005, with the Post commenting, "Apparently, that 'new creative direction' has done an about-face," and the Inquirer quoting a network vice president who "doesn't know the specifics behind the perky Davis' firing, but called it 'shortsightedness.'" Read Less