Encyclopedia of Television

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Reality Television (U.S)

"Reality television" is a label that encompasses a wide range of non-fiction formats including gamedocs, makeover programs, talent contests, docusoaps, dating shows, court programs, tabloid newsmagazine shows, and reality-based sitcoms. Yet, the genre's overarching characteristic is its claim to "the real" which it works to underscore through its aesthetic strategies (use of cinema verité techniques, surveillance video, low-end production values, or "natural settings"), its relentless obsession with the intimate, and its tendency to focus on ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And it is these very traits that have helped make reality TV one of the most talked about, reviled, and popular genres on television.

The summer of 2000 is often considered the starting point of the reality television phenomenon in the U.S., since it marked the initial appearance and unexpected popularity of Survivor and Big Brother. Yet, the roots of the genre stretch back to television's early years with programs that delved into the personal lives of game contestants (Queen for a Day and Bride and Groom) or used hidden cameras to catch people in compromising or embarrassing positions (Candid Camera). Nevertheless, there have been distinct periods in television history wherein reality programs have swelled in numbers or developed in novel and significant ways.

During the 1980s, the networks' financial and labor troubles contributed to a proliferation of reality-based programs. Already burdened by rising production costs, debts incurred by the mid-decade sale of the three of the networks to new owners, and a loss of viewers to burgeoning cable channels, the broadcast industry faced a writers strike in 1988. In the midst of what would become a twenty-two week walk-off, networks came to depend on their existing line-up of reality programs (which didn't depend on writers or other above-the-line talent) and produced new reality shows in order to fill the gap left by their fictional counterparts. From this, the networks learned reality programming was not only cheap, but also strike-proof and consequently added more and such programs to their prime-time line-ups. Some of the most successful of the shows that came out of this period were COPS, America's Most Wanted, Unsolved Mysteries, America's Funniest Home Videos and Rescue 911. But reality programs were not just contained to prime-time. Syndicated talk shows such as Geraldo, Oprah, and Phil Donahue began to take over the daytime programming slots while tabloid magazine programs like Inside Edition, A Current Affair, and Entertainment Tonight were populating afternoon and early evening slots.

The fact that these programs tended to focus on the personal problems of both ordinary people and celebrities, led many to decry them as exploitative and sensational and to eventually group them under the derogatory heading, "Trash TV." According to many critics, one producer in particular seemed to represent the very worst tendencies of this type of reality production. Mike Darnell, a former child star, produced a series of controversial specials for Fox during the mid-1990s such as World's Scariest Police Chases and When Good Pets Go Bad which were amped-up collections of recycled home movie and news footage that were described by The New York Times as "gross-out shockumentaries and socially unreedeming freak shows." In 1999, Fox's decision to air Darnell's Who Wants to Mary a Multimillionaire? (a combination beauty contest and dating show met with almost universal scorn) appeared to be the death knell for both Darnell's career and, perhaps, even reality programming in general. However, at that very moment, CBS executives and producer Mark Burnett were creating a new model of reality in the form of an expensively produced game show/documentary hybrid. That program, Survivor, would air the following summer and give rise to an unprecedented number of reality programs in prime-time television.

Like the wave of reality in the 1980s, the proliferation of reality in the early 2000s was driven, in part, by financial concerns and the threat of more strikes by writers and actors. However, this most recent surge was also pushed along by both the promise and threat posed by new technologies. The appearance of DVRs like TiVo and Replay, which allowed consumers to not only record up to 90 hours of their favorite shows, but to also skip over commercial spots during real time broadcasts, threatened to upend the longstanding relationship between networks and advertisers. However, a re-envisioned version of reality programming, as exemplified by Survivor, allowed for sponsorship and product placement, enabling networks to do a run end around the commercial-skipping feature.

Other technologies offered the potential for audience participation and worked well to increase viewer interest in the gamedoc format of many of these new reality programs. They also significantly increased the potential for profits. Phone numbers set up to take viewer votes to expel contestants often charged callers for the privilege. Websites were set up to provide extra footage or updates for a price, like the Big Brother site that charged $19.95 for access to 24-hour live streaming video of the contestants in the house. While not a popular strategy for American television, European versions of reality programs sold a service that would keep fans on top of program developments with regular SMS updates sent to their cell phones. These technologies not only gave networks new financing opportunities, but also offered viewers rather unique ways to engage with a reality narrative that seemed to extend outside the boundaries of traditional textual installments.

But it was not only networks that were investing in reality TV. Basic and premium cable channels also found the genre to be a cheap and popular programming alternative that they could easily gear towards the interests of their target audiences. MTV, whose longstanding Real World program had prefigured many of the characteristics of the new wave of reality programming a decade before Survivor came on the air, developed reality shows that featured teenagers, sorority girls, and rock stars. The Osbournes, a reality sitcom that centered on the domestic life of Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, children and innumerable pets, became the most successful (and expensive) of such shows of 2002. Premium channels Showtime and HBO also added more risqué or raw versions of reality to their schedules with series like Freshman Diaries and America Undercover. The Learning Channel (TLC) found its reality niche with makeover and lifestyle shows that often were packaged with an "educational" or family bent. Expanding off of its success with A Wedding Story/A Baby Story series it filled its daytime schedule with A Makeover Story, A Personal Story, A Dating Story and added shows like Maternity Ward, and Resident Life to its prime-time line-up. It also Americanized a number of British imports such as Changing Rooms (which it renamed Trading Spaces) and What Not To Wear.

Reality TV has become a decidedly global phenomenon that has involved a reversal of the usual flow of programming across international borders. Instead of the U.S. being the major television exporter, European companies were the originators of many of the formats that have become the most popular reality programs in the U.S. The Dutch production company Endemol is one of the most successful producer of such formats, selling basic elements of shows like Big Brother and Fear Factor to not only the U.S. but also markets in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. British exporters have also done well for themselves selling programs that found their initial success on the BBC and Channel Four to U.S. cable stations and networks. The practice of selling formats instead of providing already produced programs for international distribution is relatively new industrial practice, and is consider yet another financial advantage of the genre. Believing that that a program can be evacuated of its cultural particulars and then refilled with new ones once it arrives in another country, production companies assume that the basics of reality programming maintain a universal appeal.

Although many critics in the U.S. predicted the genres rapid decline or demise just a year or two after its rise, reality TV continued to dominate the airwaves. In fact, in early 2003 ABC announced that one-seventh of all its programming was reality-based and was planning to add even more to its schedule in upcoming seasons. The staying power of the genre and the success of new shows like American Idol and The Bachelorette convinced networks to make long-term plans for reality TV and its accompanying business strategies. In fact, in January of 2003, ABC announced that one-seventh of all its programming was reality-based and was planning to add even more to its schedule in upcoming seasons. And, in a front-page story on the topic in The New York Times, President of CBS Television, Leslie Moonves, proclaimed rather melodramatically that, "The world as we knew it is over." A few months later, development plans for an all-reality cable channel were revealed and The Real Cancun, the first "reality movie" was released in theaters. Surprisingly, even Darnell and FOX overcame the taint of the Multimillionaire disaster and came out with two new and softer marriage programs, Joe Millionaire and Married by America, which had followed ABC's success with The Bachelor.

Susan Murray

See Also: America's Most Wanted; Big Brother; Candid Camera; COPS; Real World; Survivor.

Further Reading

Andrejevic, Marc. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. New York: Rowan & Littlefield, 2003.

Brenton, Sam and Reuben Cohen. Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV. New York: Verso, 2003.

Calvert, Clay. Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy and Peering in Modern Culture (New York: Westview Press) 2000.

Friedman, James. Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Glynn, Kevin. Tabloid Culture: Trash Taste, Popular Power and the Transformation of American Television. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2000.

Murray, Susan and Laurie Ouellette. Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. New York: NYU Press, 2004.