"Reality" Shows

[Dragongirl]

Anyone miss the good old days when we had writers write dramas, comedies and stuff? Now every other show is one of these so called "reality' shows. Now don't get me wrong, I do like some of them. Been wathing Top Chef all night, and I love survivor. But what happened? No one has ideas anymore for true shows? What happened???

 

[Dog Moon]

I think that too many people have poor taste in shows and willing accept anything shoved at them, thus not requiring the time and money needed to write excellent TV shows. There are a few out there, but they are few and far in between.

 

[sydbar]

There are pleanty of ideas, but reality shows are cheaper to make, and no worries about your stars wanting more money(Friends), or having to worry about writer royalties. And now days if you have a hit series, you spin it off(CSI, Law & Order), and all the other stations are going to copy it. You also have to remember that the pay channels can take more risks, since they don't have all the rules to follow. The whole Nielson system also causes problems since they are the only people that watch the shows, no matter how popular the show is. And finally T.V. execs seem to be not very bright when it comes to scheduling programs, at least in my opinion.

 

[Aurora]

I freaking hate reality shows. They are IMO dumb and watching them in any capacity merely makes tv execs think they should make more.

 

[Dragongirl]

I freaking hate reality shows. They are IMO dumb and watching them in any capacity merely makes tv execs think they should make more.

Now tell us what you REALLY think.

 

[kenobi65]

(Disclaimer: I work in advertising. I get paid to notice these things. )

Honestly, reality shows, as the "big trend" in network TV, peaked 3 or 4 years ago. Then, the networks' schedules were full of them, because they were cheap to make, and got good ratings. Now, there's only a handful left (Survivor, Amazing Race, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, maybe one or two more)...though, if you expand the argument to cable, there's more, obviously. And I, for one, say, "thank gawd"...I found nearly all the reality shows to be uninteresting at best, tawdry at worst.

As with all things on TV, trends change. The huge popularity of series like CSI, 24, and Lost has swung the pendulum, and now you see an awful lot of "procedurals" (CSI / Law & Order and their spawn) and "unraveling mystery" shows...all of which are scripted, hour-long dramas.

 

[Harmon]

Reality shows bore me. Always have.

 

[IamTheTest]

Ill start watching reality when I start living TV. I have a tendency to record/download tv as I hate wasting time on the same 6 commercials. House, Dexter, Eureka, Scrubs, and Shark arent terrible. I like Weeds and Standoff as well. I also happen to think that Avatar: the Last Airbender is one of the best shows Ive ever seen. Good stuff is out there...just gotta find it.

 

[delericho]

A lot a of reality shows are cheap to make. Also, if there's any sort of phone-in element to them (to vote for evictions, or whatever), they can make a lot of money, even with indifferent ratings. So, I got very annoyed with our terrestrial channels a few years ago, where the schedules were packed with nothing but reality shows.

(In the UK, there are only five analogue channels. There are lots more if you switch to digital, whether Freeview or Sky. However, at the time, I only had the basic five, and they seemed to show nothing but 'reality'.)

Still, it did have the big advantage of cutting right down on the time I spent watching TV. I now have the opposite problem - there are too many programmes I want to not miss to fit in the week, especially if I want to do other things as well. Which is a nice problem to have.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here is a secret: Reality shows are cheap to produce- that is why networks love them. While there are some generalized scripts, most of the writers get paid minimum scale- only the top dogs get any real money. Rebel against the studio, and they'll find one of the 40 people who want your job to replace you.

My personal TV schedule? I watch Heroes, Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, & Dr. Who. I'm giving Dexter and Daybreak a try. When I can, I watch Stargate SG-1, Monk and Psych. Venture Bros, ATHF and a few others on Cartoon Network, as well as some Britcoms (like Coupling and Father Ted) make my list as well, but those lists are a moving target depending upon my PBS station.