I'm not surprised to hear that... Winning American Idol is similar: they will make you tour the country for a year or two (so that they make a lot of money off of you), but they cannot guarantee that you'll ever sell records. In fact I think that Chris Doughtrey was lucky to not win, since he didn't have to waste two years on tour w/the American Idol people... instead he got his own record deal and went directly to big records playing on the radio.

I imagine that Project Runway is similar: you get a lot of exposure and then you sink or swim depending upon how well you are able to use your opportunities. No one can make you a success if you don't have the business sense, ambition, and luck to make it happen.