Two years ago, most TV critics were walloping each other on the back, gleefully predicting the demise of reality television. Today, they're smarting from the sting of those slaps, and, hangdog-like, admitting that the reality craze is hotter - and bolder - than ever.
Pick up the remote and go for a spin around the dial. These so-called unscripted shows will teach you any number of invaluable life lessons. Like, say, how to cheat on your partner, renovate an apartment complex in Malibu, choose a new chin, wipe the butts of other people's kids, beat up on boxers, and eat sheep's eyeballs.
Reality TV dead? Reality TV dying?
Not on your life, says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. "This industry-changing genre is here to stay. People love the voyeurism, the anything-can-happen element of these shows.
"It's mind candy," Thompson adds - for a whacked-out generation of viewers who come home from work exhausted, and crave a little frothy escape.
And more than ever, this season promises viewers their fill of froth.
The network and cable schedules are chock full of new offerings and knockoffs, including ABC's Wife Swap and the I-wanna-be-a-millionaire show, The Benefactor; Fox's boxing-happy The Next Great Champ, as well as The Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best and The Apprentice-like The Partner; and NBC's own boxer bout, The Contender. A&E's got Growing Up Gotti (in the infamous crime-boss family) and the crime-chasing Dog the Bounty Hunter.
In Britain, one enterprising producer is even launching Priest Idol, about a man of the cloth whose task it is to entice people to flock to his humble parish. In Australia, Wine Idol will be uncorked. Back in America, white-collar felon Martha Stewart has signed a pact with Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor and The Apprentice, to do a real-life series once she's sprung from the big house. And the Pax network is launching Cold Turkey, which trains a spotlight on the miseries of nicotine withdrawal.
In fact, two 24-hour channels - both based in the United States, and exclusively devoted to reality programs - are now in the pipeline.
There's even a new book, The Reality TV Handbook: An Insider's Guide - written by Joe Billionaire star Evan Marriott, John Saade (co-producer of The Bachelor and Extreme Makeover), Joe Borgenicht, and Daniel Chen - that provides tips on how to become a reality-TV star, à la Jessica Simpson, The Bachelorette's Trista Rehn and Marriott himself. One tip worth noting: Think twice before you send in a nude photo with your application. According to the authors, casting agents regularly toss out applicants who play the nude card.
The TV pundits were foretelling the decline of reality television even before dishy rodeo star David Smith got off his horse in Texas and signed on as the star of The Next Joe Millionaire in the fall of 2003. That show tanked so badly that, some said, reality TV finally looked like it might be heading into the sunset.
But then, just months later, Trump, the man with the most astounding comb over on television, charged onto the scene with NBC's The Apprentice. The one-time billionaire's boardroom shenanigans appealed to a highly valued demographic: well-educated people with lots of disposable income - a notoriously difficult group for programmers to reach. A new reality star was born, ultimately spawning several Apprentice imitators, including The Benefactor, The Billionaire and Fox's latest, The Partner, about recent law-school graduates duking it out for a shot at making partner in a law firm. Jeff Zucker, president of NBC, recently said The Apprentice was his network's "single most valuable show."
Now, it seems, there is no looking back. This year, "reality/competition TV" became a category in the Primetime Emmy Awards. ( The Amazing Race - on CBS and CTV - won.)
According to the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, nine reality shows ranked among the Top 25 programs during prime time in 2003-04 in the all-important 18-49 demo, compared with five the year before. On the fall, 2004, prime-time schedules in North America, reality shows' ratings are up 33 per cent from a year ago, adds BBM. The genre is clearly no longer perceived as the lower-brow form of programming meant merely to fill gaps in TV summer lineups, or shore up holes left by mid-season flops.
Ted Magder, an associate professor of media studies at New York University, says reality shows are here to stay - for a number of reasons. Notes Magder, "They're relatively cheap to make, advertisers and product-placement brokers love them, and audiences - especially young audiences - are willing to watch." The production cost for an hour of reality programming is about $800,000 (U.S.), compared with roughly $1-million for a half-hour sitcom and $2-million for a drama.
"Two years ago, some people thought they were a passing fad," adds Magder. "Now it seems the days of the sitcom may be numbered. TV itself is undergoing an 'extreme makeover,'." he says.
And there's no end, it seems, to reality's many mutations.
There are the talent shows ( American and Canadian Idol); cutthroat competitive shows (starting with the king of 'em all, Survivor, and The Amazing Race); wacky-people-living-together shows (kick-started by MTV's The Real World, followed more recently by VH1's The Surreal Life, co-starring Charo, Brigitte Nielsen (the former Ms. Sly Stallone) and Public Enemy's Flavor Flav; the at-home-with-B-list-celebrity shows ( The Anna Nicole Smith Show, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, The Osbournes); the makeover shows (for buildings: Trading Spaces, Extreme Home Makeover and The Complex: Malibu; and for people: The Swan and Extreme Makeover); the dating shows ( The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Temptation Island, Bachelorettes in Alaska); the business shows ( The Apprentice et al.); and the family-swapping shows ( Wife Swap, Trading Spouses).
There are also several new subgenres to the reality field this fall. They include shows for the young and beautiful (MTV's Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which chronicles the trials and tribulations of wealthy, attractive teenagers in what amounts to a reality-based version of The O.C.); ex-criminal shows (SUV rammer Lizzie Grubman's PoweR Girls on MTV, and Dog the Bounty Hunter, which stars a former convict who's now on the righteous side of the law); and dysfunctional-family programs ( Growing Up Gotti; and, on HBO, Family Bonds).
Michael Hirschorn, executive vice-president of production and programming for VH1, says The Surreal Life, on which flabby porn star Ron Jeremy was among the Hollywood rejects featured last season, has become a cult hit with young viewers because "it's so out there, and bizarre, and weird - yet genuinely real - that no one could have scripted it. That's the appeal of these shows.
"Most sitcoms and dramas tend to be about other sitcoms and dramas, not about life," adds the New York-based executive. "This is a gap that reality TV has found. There's more pathos, greed, ambition and lust in reality television - and all those base emotions come through better in reality, even when the reality format is highly contrived."
Adam Ivers, vice-president of programming for CanWest Global Television, says the key to reality's success is the escapism it provides everyday folk. "People are fascinated by the characters, and they love the fact you never know what's around the corner. The unpredictable nature of the genre has completely captivated audiences. Before Survivor, TV was all about the scripted drama, the sitcom and news programs. Reality has emerged as an alternative to the sitcom, whose development we've seen decline dramatically."
In the process, reality has not been kind to those who depend on writing TV shows for a living. They and many others say reality is also dumbing down television - a process many might have thought impossible not so long ago.
Last week, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists attacked CanWest Global's reality-laden fall schedule, which the network has billed " Keeping it Real," and which features Fear Factor, T rading Spouses, Survivor, The Apprentice, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Swan, The Biggest Loser, Last Comic Standing and The Contender.
Except for the big shows like Survivor and the like, it can be done very, very cheaply, said ACTRA's national executive director, Stephen Waddell. "They don't have to pay a lot of professional writers or performers. And therefore they save bundles of money in terms of production costs." He noted as well that Global had just replaced a number of senior Canadian programming executives with Americans.
At the same time, Waddell clearly sees it as foolhardy to rely on such programming in the long run. "Looking at the economics from a distribution perspective, these shows have no legs," he said. "There's no second window beyond the original broadcast in most cases."
Simply put, we know Trista picked Ryan.
Ivers agrees that reality television has changed the buying and selling of TV - but disagrees that that translates into lower profits down the line. "Traditionally the back end [recoupment]was the syndication of the programs around the world," says Ivers. "Now it's the syndication of the format. So local markets can create their own versions of a proven format. It's just changed the way the business is structured. It's created an alternative revenue stream from the traditional norms of program sales and syndication."
Ivers also defended his program slate, saying Global is balancing its investment in American reality with the home-grown production of such shows as the soap opera Train 48, the drama Wild Card and the comedy-reality show The Temp. Adds Ivers, "A huge push for us as part of the CanWest restructuring announced earlier this week is to develop Canadian content that is marketable on a global basis. ... It's hard to define what 'good television' is, but the true measure of the currency we use is eyeballs."
At the same time, Mike Cosentino, spokesman for CTV, says that, while reality programs have obviously found a major niche, dramas still find their way to the top of the ratings heap in Canada. As of Oct. 3, according to BBM, Survivor was the No. 1 show on Canadian TV, but eight of the Top 10 programs were dramas, including CSI New York, CSI, CSI Miami, ER, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The Apprentice ranked seventh, while Fear Factor came in at No. 13.
"Reality programming clearly isn't the flash in the pan that some thought it would be," says Cosentino. "But it's just become ..... a part of our overall programming balance for CTV."
At Syracuse's Center for the Study of Popular Television, director Thompson says reality television is thriving because it thumbs its nose at convention - and conventional TV. " The Apprentice, whose ratings interestingly, aren't as strong as the first season, is still a pleasure for me to watch," he insists. "And not a guilty pleasure.
" Temptation Island," he says, "was a deliciously terrible show, whose premise was so over the top, it couldn't help but be deliciously campy." Adds Thompson: "Sometimes we go to these shows as much to laugh at them as to watch them. It's a really odd art form. Often when it's at its very worst is when we like it the most."
Gayle MacDonald