Thursday, Aug 28, 2008
Pundits can tut-tut all they want, but reality shows rule television for a simple reason: The best of them are far more compelling than the worn-out sitcoms and crime dramas the networks keep churning out.
Sep 13, 2004 | "[S]ifting through so-called reality TV has become like rummaging through a landfill: There seems to be no end to the quantity and types of trash you'll find ... [I]f we're going to start setting taste standards for reality TV, there's going to be a lot of dead air time." [Myrtle Beach Sun News, 9/2/04]
"This is not just bad television in the sense that it's mediocre, pointless, puerile even. It's bad because it's damaging." -- BBC journalist John Humphrys, in a speech to U.K. TV executives [Reuters U.K., 8/27/04]
"Reality TV is so cheap because you don't need writers, actors, directors ... it is killing off new talent and we are all worse off for that." Rebecca of Cambridge, U.K. posting on BBC News, 8/28/04]
"Reality TV, in particular, mocks committed relationships and makes trust seem foolish, some teens said. So teens tend to 'hook up' with friends to get a sexual fix without the responsibility of a relationship." [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 9/7/04]
"Sarah Austin occasionally watches reality TV, but finds it sad, rather than engaging." The Age, 9/5/04]
Welcome to the modern world, where we're all sucking on the same pop cultural crack pipe, but only the unrefined among us will admit that they inhale. Reality TV earns its reputation as the dangerous street drug du jour mostly by aiming its lens at human behavior -- we're far less photogenic than we imagine ourselves to be. While shows run the gamut from high-quality, dramatically compelling work to silly, exploitative trash, pundits consistently point to programs at the bottom of the barrel and cast aspersions on those foolish enough to watch them. Thanks to this stigma, it's not always easy to get a clear picture of how many people genuinely enjoy reality shows and aren't about to give them up.
Instead, every few months, a new survey announces that reality is on its way out. Last March, an Insider Advantage survey found that "67 percent of Americans" were "becoming tired of so-called reality programs." This year, a survey by Circuit City concluded that 58 percent of viewers are "getting tired" of reality TV. (What are they excited about? Why, HDTV, of course -- they just can't wait to purchase their new HDTV-capable sets!) Can you expect accurate results when you ask people if they're "getting tired" of anything? But even while many people take their cue from the media and bemoan the evils of reality, they're still watching. Just as there are those who claim to read Penthouse for the fine articles, no matter how "sad, rather than engaging" reality TV might be, audiences have yet to drop off as predicted.
"Reality TV is not going away," says Marc Berman, television analyst for Mediaweek. "This summer, reality dominated. In terms of total viewers during the regular season, three of the top five shows ["The Apprentice," "American Idol" and "Survivor"] were reality shows." Berman predicts that we'll see these same reality shows pull in big numbers in the fall, along with frequent time-slot winners like "The Bachelor" and whichever new reality programs draw in big audiences. "The bottom line is that the genre is absolutely exploding," Berman says.
Instead of writing off millions of viewers as the unenlightened consumers of lowbrow entertainment, shouldn't we ask why they're attracted to reality TV in the first place?
First of all, viewers have been exposed to the same half-hour and hour episodic plot structures, implemented in roughly the same ways, for decades now, setting the stage for a less conventional format. Even once-groundbreaking, high-quality dramas like "ER" and "The West Wing" have evolved into parodies of themselves, with all the usual suspects striding through halls and corridors, spitting out the same clever quips until the next big tragedy hits. Meanwhile, traditional sitcoms are faring even worse, as the networks spend millions each fall to develop shows that don't stick. While those in the industry bemoan the fact that the networks have whittled their sitcom offerings down to two or three shows, that makes perfect sense when you recognize how bad TV executives have been at locating genuinely good shows, and how expensive it is just to develop a handful of episodes. "Two and a Half Men," one of the only new sitcoms from last fall to make it to another season, is considered a hit, yet it's not remotely funny. And the best sitcoms -- "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Will & Grace" and "That '70s Show" -- are all winding down, with one-half ("Raymond") to two years left in them, at most.
That's not to say that the world of scripted entertainment is dead -- far from it. Instead, new formats are taking hold: one-camera sitcoms like "Arrested Development" and "Entourage," sketch comedies like "Chappelle's Show" and "Da Ali G Show," and unconventional twists on old formulas like "Deadwood" and "The Wire." But unconventional means risky, which is why none of those shows are on the Big Three networks, which seem as faithful to old-formula fiction as Joanie was to Chachi.
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