Reality TV Shows; Type of Reality Shows; Latest News on Reality telivision
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors. Although the genre has existed in some form or another since the early years of television, the term reality television is most commonly used to describe programs of this genre produced since 2000. Documentaries and nonfictional programming such as news and sports shows are usually not classified as reality shows.
The genre covers a wide range of programming formats, from game or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning shows produced in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s (such as Gaki no tsukai), to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as Big Brother.
Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, utilizing sensationalism to attract viewers to generate advertising profits. Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations, and are sometimes coached, to act in certain scripted ways by off-screen "story editors" or "segment producers," with the portrayal of events and speech manipulated and contrived to create an illusion of reality through editing and other post-production techniques.
Documentary style
In many reality television shows, the viewer and the camera are passive observers following people going about their daily personal and professional activities; this style of filming is often referred to as "fly on the wall" or "Factual television". Often "plots" are constructed via editing or planned situations, with the results resembling soap operas—hence the term docusoap or docudrama. In other shows, a cinéma vérité style is adopted, where the filmmaker is more than a passive observer—their presence and influence is greatly manifest.
Within documentary-style reality television are several subcategories or variants:
Special living environment
Some documentary-style programs place cast members, who in most cases previously did not know each other, in artificial living environments; The Real World is the originator of this style. In almost every other such show, cast members are given a specific challenge or obstacle to overcome. Road Rules, which started in 1995 as a spin-off of The Real World, started this pattern: the cast traveled across the country guided by clues and performing tasks.
Big Brother is probably the best known program of this type in the world with different versions produced in many countries around the globe. Another example of a show in this category The 1900 House, involves historical re-enactment with cast members forced to live and work as people of a specific time and place. 2001's Temptation Island achieved some notoriety by placing several couples on an island surrounded by single people in order to test the couples' commitment to each other. U8TV: The Lofters combined the "special living environment" format with the "professional activity" format noted below; in addition to living together in a loft, each member of the show's cast was hired to host a television program for a Canadian cable channel.
Celebrities
Another subset of fly-on-the-wall-style shows involves celebrities. Often these show a celebrity going about their everyday life: examples include The Anna Nicole Show, The Osbournes, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, Hey Paula!, Hammertime, Hogan Knows Best and now Brooke Knows Best. In other shows, celebrities are put on location and given a specific task or tasks; these include Celebrity Big Brother, The Simple Life, Tommy Lee Goes to College, The Surreal Life, and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!. VH1 has created an entire block of shows dedicated to celebrity reality, known as "Celebreality".
Professional activities
Some documentary-style shows portray professionals either going about day-to-day business or performing an entire project over the course of a series. No outside experts are brought in (at least, none appear on screen) to either provide help or to judge results. The earliest example (and the longest running reality show of any genre) is COPS which has been airing since 1989, preceding by many years the current reality show phenomenon.
Other examples of this type of reality show include the American shows Miami Ink, American Chopper and Deadliest Catch; the British shows Airport, Police Stop! and Traffic Cops; the Australian shows Border Security and Bondi Rescue, and the New Zealand show Motorway Patrol. The US cable networks TLC and A&E in particular show a number of this type of reality show.
VH1's 2001 show Bands on the Run was a notable early hybrid, in that the show featured four unsigned bands touring and making music as a professional activity, but also pitted the bands against one another in game show fashion to see which band could make the most money.
Elimination and game shows
Another type of reality TV is "reality-competition", or so-called "reality game shows", which follow the format of an elimination contest (non-tournament). Typically, participants are filmed competing to win a prize, often while living together in a confined environment. In many cases, participants are removed until only one person or team remains, who/which is then declared the winner. Usually this is done by eliminating participants one at a time, in balloon debate style, through either disapproval voting or by voting for the most popular choice to win. Voting is done by the viewing audience, the show's own participants, a panel of judges, or some combination of the three.
A well-known example of a reality-competition show is the globally-syndicated Big Brother, in which cast members live together in the same house, with participants removed at regular intervals by either the viewing audience or, in the case of the American version, by the participants themselves.
There remains some disagreement over whether talent-search shows such as the Idol series, America's Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, and Celebrity Duets are truly reality television, or just newer incarnations of shows such as Star Search. Although the shows involve a traditional talent search, the shows follow the reality-competition conventions of removing one or more contestants per episode and allowing the public to vote on who is removed; the Idol series also require the contestants to live together during the run of the show (though their daily life is never shown onscreen). Additionally, there is a good deal of interaction shown between contestants and judges. As a result, such shows are often considered reality television, and the American Primetime Emmy Awards have nominated both American Idol and Dancing with the Stars for the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program Emmy.
Modern game shows like Weakest Link, Greed, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, American Gladiators, Dog Eat Dog and Deal or No Deal also lie in a gray area: like traditional game shows (e.g., The Price Is Right, Jeopardy!), the action takes place in an enclosed TV studio over a short period of time; however, they have higher production values, more dramatic background music, and higher stakes than traditional shows (done either through putting contestants into physical danger or offering large cash prizes). In addition, there is more interaction between contestants and hosts, and in some cases they feature reality-style contestant competition and/or elimination as well. These factors, as well as these shows' rise in global popularity at the same time as the arrival of the reality craze, lead many people to group them under the reality TV umbrella as well as the traditional game show one.
There are various hybrid reality-competition shows, like the worldwide-syndicated Star Academy, which combines the Big Brother and Idol formats, The Biggest Loser and The Pick-up Artist which combine competition with the self-improvement format, and American Inventor, which uses the Idol format for products instead of people. Some shows, such as Making the Band and Project Greenlight, devote the first part of the season to selecting a winner, and the second part to showing that person or group of people working on a project.
Popular variants of the competition-based format include the following:
Dating-based competition
Dating-based competition shows follow a contestant choosing one out of a group of suitors. Over the course of either a single episode or an entire season, suitors are eliminated until only the contestant and the final suitor remains. For a time, in 2001–2003, this type of reality show dominated the other genres on the major US networks. Shows that aired included The Bachelor, its spin-off The Bachelorette, as well as For Love or Money, Paradise Hotel, Temptation Island, Average Joe and Farmer Wants a Wife, among others. More recent such shows include Flavor of Love and its spin-offs I Love New York, Rock of Love, and The Cougar.
Job search
In this category, the competition revolves around a skill that contestants were pre-screened for. Competitors perform a variety of tasks based around that skill, are judged, and are then kept or removed by a single expert or a panel of experts. The show is usually presented as a job search of some kind, in which the prize for the winner includes a contract to perform that kind of work. Popstars, which debuted in 1999, may have been the first such show. The first job-search show which showed dramatic, unscripted situations may have been America's Next Top Model, which premiered in May 2003. Other examples include The Apprentice (which judges business skills), Hell's Kitchen (for chefs), Shear Genius (for hair styling), Project Runway (for clothing design), Top Chef (for cooking), Top Design (for interior design), Stylista (for fashion editors), Last Comic Standing (for comedians), The Starlet and Scream Queens (for actresses), I Know My Kid's a Star (for child performers), On the Lot (for filmmakers), The Shot (for photographers), So You Think You Can Dance (for dancers), and MuchMusic VJ Search (for television hosts). Some shows use the same format with celebrities: in this case, there is no expectation that the winner will continue this line of work, and prize winnings often go to charity. Examples include Deadline and The Celebrity Apprentice.
Sports
Most of these programs create a sporting competition among athletes attempting to establish their name in that sport. The Club, in 2002, was one of the first shows to immerse sport with reality TV, based around a fabricated club competing against real clubs in the sport of Australian rules football; the audience helped select which players played each week by voting for their favorites. The Big Break was a reality show in which aspiring golfers competed against one another and were eliminated. The Contender, a boxing show, unfortunately became the first American reality show in which a contestant committed suicide after being eliminated from the show. In The Ultimate Fighter participants have voluntarily withdrawn or expressed the desire to withdraw from the show due to competitive pressure.
In sports shows, sometimes just appearing on the show, not necessarily winning, can get a contestant the job. The owner of UFC declared that the final match of the first season of Ultimate Fighter was so good, both contestants were offered a contract, and in addition, many non-winning "TUF Alumni" have prospered in the UFC. Many of the losers from World Wrestling Entertainment's Tough Enough and Diva Search shows have been picked up by the company.
Not all sports programs, however, involve athletes trying to make a name in the sport. The 2006 US reality series Knight School focused on students at Texas Tech University vying for a walk-on (non-scholarship) roster position on the school's men's basketball team under legendary coach Bob Knight. In the Republic of Ireland, RTÉ One's Celebrity Bainisteoir involves eight non-sporting Irish celebrities becoming bainisteoiri (managers) of mid-level Gaelic football teams, leading their teams in an officially sanctioned tournament.
Self-improvement/makeover
Some reality television shows cover a person or group of people improving their lives. Sometimes the same group of people are covered over an entire season (as in The Swan and Celebrity Fit Club), but usually there is a new target for improvement in each episode. Despite differences in the content, the format is usually the same: first the show introduces the subjects in their current, less-than-ideal environment. Then the subjects meet with a group of experts, who give the subjects instructions on how to improve things; they offer aid and encouragement along the way. Finally, the subjects are placed back in their environment and they, along with their friends and family and the experts, appraise the changes that have occurred. Other self-improvement or makeover shows include "How Do I Look?" (fashion makeover). The Biggest Loser and Fat March, (which covers weight loss), Extreme Makeover (entire physical appearance), Queer Eye For The Straight Guy (style and grooming), Supernanny, Nanny 911 and World's Strictest Parents (child-rearing), Made (attaining difficult goals), What Not to Wear (fashion and grooming), Trinny & Susannah Undress (fashion makeover and marriage), Tool Academy (relationship building), Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School & Rock of Love Girls: Charm School 2 (manners), From G's to Gents (self improvement) The Girls of Hedsor Hall (etiquette) and The Bad Girls Club & Bad Girls Road Trip (self improvement).
In many reality television shows, the viewer and the camera are passive observers following people going about their daily personal and professional activities; this style of filming is often referred to as "fly on the wall" or "Factual television". Often "plots" are constructed via editing or planned situations, with the results resembling soap operas—hence the term docusoap or docudrama. In other shows, a cinéma vérité style is adopted, where the filmmaker is more than a passive observer—their presence and influence is greatly manifest.
Within documentary-style reality television are several subcategories or variants:
Special living environment
Some documentary-style programs place cast members, who in most cases previously did not know each other, in artificial living environments; The Real World is the originator of this style. In almost every other such show, cast members are given a specific challenge or obstacle to overcome. Road Rules, which started in 1995 as a spin-off of The Real World, started this pattern: the cast traveled across the country guided by clues and performing tasks.
Big Brother is probably the best known program of this type in the world with different versions produced in many countries around the globe. Another example of a show in this category The 1900 House, involves historical re-enactment with cast members forced to live and work as people of a specific time and place. 2001's Temptation Island achieved some notoriety by placing several couples on an island surrounded by single people in order to test the couples' commitment to each other. U8TV: The Lofters combined the "special living environment" format with the "professional activity" format noted below; in addition to living together in a loft, each member of the show's cast was hired to host a television program for a Canadian cable channel.
Celebrities
Another subset of fly-on-the-wall-style shows involves celebrities. Often these show a celebrity going about their everyday life: examples include The Anna Nicole Show, The Osbournes, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, Hey Paula!, Hammertime, Hogan Knows Best and now Brooke Knows Best. In other shows, celebrities are put on location and given a specific task or tasks; these include Celebrity Big Brother, The Simple Life, Tommy Lee Goes to College, The Surreal Life, and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!. VH1 has created an entire block of shows dedicated to celebrity reality, known as "Celebreality".
Professional activities
Some documentary-style shows portray professionals either going about day-to-day business or performing an entire project over the course of a series. No outside experts are brought in (at least, none appear on screen) to either provide help or to judge results. The earliest example (and the longest running reality show of any genre) is COPS which has been airing since 1989, preceding by many years the current reality show phenomenon.
Other examples of this type of reality show include the American shows Miami Ink, American Chopper and Deadliest Catch; the British shows Airport, Police Stop! and Traffic Cops; the Australian shows Border Security and Bondi Rescue, and the New Zealand show Motorway Patrol. The US cable networks TLC and A&E in particular show a number of this type of reality show.
VH1's 2001 show Bands on the Run was a notable early hybrid, in that the show featured four unsigned bands touring and making music as a professional activity, but also pitted the bands against one another in game show fashion to see which band could make the most money.
Elimination and game shows
Another type of reality TV is "reality-competition", or so-called "reality game shows", which follow the format of an elimination contest (non-tournament). Typically, participants are filmed competing to win a prize, often while living together in a confined environment. In many cases, participants are removed until only one person or team remains, who/which is then declared the winner. Usually this is done by eliminating participants one at a time, in balloon debate style, through either disapproval voting or by voting for the most popular choice to win. Voting is done by the viewing audience, the show's own participants, a panel of judges, or some combination of the three.
A well-known example of a reality-competition show is the globally-syndicated Big Brother, in which cast members live together in the same house, with participants removed at regular intervals by either the viewing audience or, in the case of the American version, by the participants themselves.
There remains some disagreement over whether talent-search shows such as the Idol series, America's Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, and Celebrity Duets are truly reality television, or just newer incarnations of shows such as Star Search. Although the shows involve a traditional talent search, the shows follow the reality-competition conventions of removing one or more contestants per episode and allowing the public to vote on who is removed; the Idol series also require the contestants to live together during the run of the show (though their daily life is never shown onscreen). Additionally, there is a good deal of interaction shown between contestants and judges. As a result, such shows are often considered reality television, and the American Primetime Emmy Awards have nominated both American Idol and Dancing with the Stars for the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program Emmy.
Modern game shows like Weakest Link, Greed, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, American Gladiators, Dog Eat Dog and Deal or No Deal also lie in a gray area: like traditional game shows (e.g., The Price Is Right, Jeopardy!), the action takes place in an enclosed TV studio over a short period of time; however, they have higher production values, more dramatic background music, and higher stakes than traditional shows (done either through putting contestants into physical danger or offering large cash prizes). In addition, there is more interaction between contestants and hosts, and in some cases they feature reality-style contestant competition and/or elimination as well. These factors, as well as these shows' rise in global popularity at the same time as the arrival of the reality craze, lead many people to group them under the reality TV umbrella as well as the traditional game show one.
There are various hybrid reality-competition shows, like the worldwide-syndicated Star Academy, which combines the Big Brother and Idol formats, The Biggest Loser and The Pick-up Artist which combine competition with the self-improvement format, and American Inventor, which uses the Idol format for products instead of people. Some shows, such as Making the Band and Project Greenlight, devote the first part of the season to selecting a winner, and the second part to showing that person or group of people working on a project.
Popular variants of the competition-based format include the following:
Dating-based competition
Dating-based competition shows follow a contestant choosing one out of a group of suitors. Over the course of either a single episode or an entire season, suitors are eliminated until only the contestant and the final suitor remains. For a time, in 2001–2003, this type of reality show dominated the other genres on the major US networks. Shows that aired included The Bachelor, its spin-off The Bachelorette, as well as For Love or Money, Paradise Hotel, Temptation Island, Average Joe and Farmer Wants a Wife, among others. More recent such shows include Flavor of Love and its spin-offs I Love New York, Rock of Love, and The Cougar.
Job search
In this category, the competition revolves around a skill that contestants were pre-screened for. Competitors perform a variety of tasks based around that skill, are judged, and are then kept or removed by a single expert or a panel of experts. The show is usually presented as a job search of some kind, in which the prize for the winner includes a contract to perform that kind of work. Popstars, which debuted in 1999, may have been the first such show. The first job-search show which showed dramatic, unscripted situations may have been America's Next Top Model, which premiered in May 2003. Other examples include The Apprentice (which judges business skills), Hell's Kitchen (for chefs), Shear Genius (for hair styling), Project Runway (for clothing design), Top Chef (for cooking), Top Design (for interior design), Stylista (for fashion editors), Last Comic Standing (for comedians), The Starlet and Scream Queens (for actresses), I Know My Kid's a Star (for child performers), On the Lot (for filmmakers), The Shot (for photographers), So You Think You Can Dance (for dancers), and MuchMusic VJ Search (for television hosts). Some shows use the same format with celebrities: in this case, there is no expectation that the winner will continue this line of work, and prize winnings often go to charity. Examples include Deadline and The Celebrity Apprentice.
Sports
Most of these programs create a sporting competition among athletes attempting to establish their name in that sport. The Club, in 2002, was one of the first shows to immerse sport with reality TV, based around a fabricated club competing against real clubs in the sport of Australian rules football; the audience helped select which players played each week by voting for their favorites. The Big Break was a reality show in which aspiring golfers competed against one another and were eliminated. The Contender, a boxing show, unfortunately became the first American reality show in which a contestant committed suicide after being eliminated from the show. In The Ultimate Fighter participants have voluntarily withdrawn or expressed the desire to withdraw from the show due to competitive pressure.
In sports shows, sometimes just appearing on the show, not necessarily winning, can get a contestant the job. The owner of UFC declared that the final match of the first season of Ultimate Fighter was so good, both contestants were offered a contract, and in addition, many non-winning "TUF Alumni" have prospered in the UFC. Many of the losers from World Wrestling Entertainment's Tough Enough and Diva Search shows have been picked up by the company.
Not all sports programs, however, involve athletes trying to make a name in the sport. The 2006 US reality series Knight School focused on students at Texas Tech University vying for a walk-on (non-scholarship) roster position on the school's men's basketball team under legendary coach Bob Knight. In the Republic of Ireland, RTÉ One's Celebrity Bainisteoir involves eight non-sporting Irish celebrities becoming bainisteoiri (managers) of mid-level Gaelic football teams, leading their teams in an officially sanctioned tournament.
Self-improvement/makeover
Some reality television shows cover a person or group of people improving their lives. Sometimes the same group of people are covered over an entire season (as in The Swan and Celebrity Fit Club), but usually there is a new target for improvement in each episode. Despite differences in the content, the format is usually the same: first the show introduces the subjects in their current, less-than-ideal environment. Then the subjects meet with a group of experts, who give the subjects instructions on how to improve things; they offer aid and encouragement along the way. Finally, the subjects are placed back in their environment and they, along with their friends and family and the experts, appraise the changes that have occurred. Other self-improvement or makeover shows include "How Do I Look?" (fashion makeover). The Biggest Loser and Fat March, (which covers weight loss), Extreme Makeover (entire physical appearance), Queer Eye For The Straight Guy (style and grooming), Supernanny, Nanny 911 and World's Strictest Parents (child-rearing), Made (attaining difficult goals), What Not to Wear (fashion and grooming), Trinny & Susannah Undress (fashion makeover and marriage), Tool Academy (relationship building), Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School & Rock of Love Girls: Charm School 2 (manners), From G's to Gents (self improvement) The Girls of Hedsor Hall (etiquette) and The Bad Girls Club & Bad Girls Road Trip (self improvement).
Renovation
Some shows make over part or all of a person's living space, work space, or vehicle. The American show This Old House was the first such show, debuting in 1979. The British show Changing Rooms, beginning in 1996 (later remade in the U.S. as Trading Spaces) was the first such renovation show that added a game show feel with different weekly contestants. Other shows in this category include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Debbie Travis' Facelift, Designed to Sell, While You Were Out, and Holmes on Homes. Pimp My Ride and Overhaulin' show vehicles being rebuilt. Some shows, such as Restaurant Makeover and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, show both the decor and the menu of a failing restaurant being remade. The issue of "making over" was taken to its social extreme with the British show Life Laundry, in which people who had become hoarders, even living in squalor, were given professional assistance.
As with game shows, a gray area exists between such reality TV shows and more conventional formats. Some argue the key difference is the emphasis of the human story and conflicts of reality shows, versus the emphasis on process and information in more traditional format shows. The show This Old House, which began in 1979, the start to finish renovation of different houses through a season; media critic Jeff Jarvis has speculated that it is "the original reality TV show."
Social experiment
Another type of reality program is the social experiment that produces drama, conflict, and sometimes transformation. Wife Swap which began in 2003 on Channel 4 and has aired for four seasons on ABC is a notable example. People with different values agreed to live by each other's social rules for a brief period of time and sometimes learn from the experience. Other shows in this category include ITV's Holiday Showdown, Oxygen's The Bad Girls Club (lifestyles and actions), and Channel 4's Secret Millionaire. Faking It was a series where people had to learn a new skill and pass themselves off as experts in that skill. Shattered was a controversial 2004 UK series where contestants competed for how long they could go without sleep.
Dating shows
Unlike the aforementioned dating competition shows, some shows feature all new contestants each episode. This format was first used in the 1960s show The Dating Game. Modern examples include Blind Date, Room Raiders, Elimidate,Next, and Parental Control.
Talk shows
Though the traditional format of a talk show is that of a host interviewing a featured guest or discussing a chosen topic with a guest or panel of guests, the advent of trash TV shows has often made people group the entire category in with reality television. Programs like Ricki Lake, The Jerry Springer Show and others generally recruit guests by advertising a potential topic for a future program. Topics are frequently outrageous and are chosen in the interest of creating on-screen drama, tension or outrageous behaviour. Though not explicitly reality television by traditional standards, this (allegedly) real depiction of someone's life, even if only in a brief interview format, is frequently considered akin to broader-scale reality TV programming.
Some shows make over part or all of a person's living space, work space, or vehicle. The American show This Old House was the first such show, debuting in 1979. The British show Changing Rooms, beginning in 1996 (later remade in the U.S. as Trading Spaces) was the first such renovation show that added a game show feel with different weekly contestants. Other shows in this category include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Debbie Travis' Facelift, Designed to Sell, While You Were Out, and Holmes on Homes. Pimp My Ride and Overhaulin' show vehicles being rebuilt. Some shows, such as Restaurant Makeover and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, show both the decor and the menu of a failing restaurant being remade. The issue of "making over" was taken to its social extreme with the British show Life Laundry, in which people who had become hoarders, even living in squalor, were given professional assistance.
As with game shows, a gray area exists between such reality TV shows and more conventional formats. Some argue the key difference is the emphasis of the human story and conflicts of reality shows, versus the emphasis on process and information in more traditional format shows. The show This Old House, which began in 1979, the start to finish renovation of different houses through a season; media critic Jeff Jarvis has speculated that it is "the original reality TV show."
Social experiment
Another type of reality program is the social experiment that produces drama, conflict, and sometimes transformation. Wife Swap which began in 2003 on Channel 4 and has aired for four seasons on ABC is a notable example. People with different values agreed to live by each other's social rules for a brief period of time and sometimes learn from the experience. Other shows in this category include ITV's Holiday Showdown, Oxygen's The Bad Girls Club (lifestyles and actions), and Channel 4's Secret Millionaire. Faking It was a series where people had to learn a new skill and pass themselves off as experts in that skill. Shattered was a controversial 2004 UK series where contestants competed for how long they could go without sleep.
Dating shows
Unlike the aforementioned dating competition shows, some shows feature all new contestants each episode. This format was first used in the 1960s show The Dating Game. Modern examples include Blind Date, Room Raiders, Elimidate,Next, and Parental Control.
Talk shows
Though the traditional format of a talk show is that of a host interviewing a featured guest or discussing a chosen topic with a guest or panel of guests, the advent of trash TV shows has often made people group the entire category in with reality television. Programs like Ricki Lake, The Jerry Springer Show and others generally recruit guests by advertising a potential topic for a future program. Topics are frequently outrageous and are chosen in the interest of creating on-screen drama, tension or outrageous behaviour. Though not explicitly reality television by traditional standards, this (allegedly) real depiction of someone's life, even if only in a brief interview format, is frequently considered akin to broader-scale reality TV programming.
Supernatural
Started by MTV's Fear in 2000, supernatural reality shows place participants into frightening situations which involve the paranormal. The stated aim is investigation, but in actuality, the sub-category thrives on generating fear in the audience and participants. In general, shows follow the stylized pattern established by MTV's Fear: opening setting up the location; grainy archival footage cut quickly together; night vision cameras; surveillance cameras; hand held cameras; odd angles; subtitles establishing place and time through out the episode; large abandoned locations; desaturated imagery; rapid fire, MTV editing; non-melodic soundtracks; only filming at night; minimal camera crew; or no crew if the participants film themselves. Some series use the game show format wherein contestants are challenged to survive the investigation, thus win money; while others use a recurring crew of paranormal researchers.
The sub-category also encompasses Celebrity Paranormal Project, Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters, among others. A variant dispenses with supernatural overtones and aims solely at inciting fear or aversion in the cast. Fear Factor and Scare Tactics follow this variant.
Hoaxes
In hoax reality shows, the entire show is a prank played on one or more of the cast members, who think they are appearing in a legitimate reality show; the rest of the cast are actors who are in on the joke. These shows often served to parody the conventions of the reality TV genre. The first such show was 2003's The Joe Schmo Show. Other examples are My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (modeled after The Apprentice), My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Hell Date (modeled after Blind Date), Superstar USA (modeled after American Idol), Space Cadets (which convinced the hoax targets that they were being flown into space), The $25 Million Hoax (where a woman convinced her friends and family that she had won the lottery) and Invasion Iowa (in which a town was convinced that William Shatner was filming a movie there), and Reality Hell (different target and premise every episode).
Other shows, though not hoax shows per se, have offered misleading information to some cast members in order to add a wrinkle to the competition. Examples include Boy Meets Boy and Joe Millionaire.
Started by MTV's Fear in 2000, supernatural reality shows place participants into frightening situations which involve the paranormal. The stated aim is investigation, but in actuality, the sub-category thrives on generating fear in the audience and participants. In general, shows follow the stylized pattern established by MTV's Fear: opening setting up the location; grainy archival footage cut quickly together; night vision cameras; surveillance cameras; hand held cameras; odd angles; subtitles establishing place and time through out the episode; large abandoned locations; desaturated imagery; rapid fire, MTV editing; non-melodic soundtracks; only filming at night; minimal camera crew; or no crew if the participants film themselves. Some series use the game show format wherein contestants are challenged to survive the investigation, thus win money; while others use a recurring crew of paranormal researchers.
The sub-category also encompasses Celebrity Paranormal Project, Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters, among others. A variant dispenses with supernatural overtones and aims solely at inciting fear or aversion in the cast. Fear Factor and Scare Tactics follow this variant.
Hoaxes
In hoax reality shows, the entire show is a prank played on one or more of the cast members, who think they are appearing in a legitimate reality show; the rest of the cast are actors who are in on the joke. These shows often served to parody the conventions of the reality TV genre. The first such show was 2003's The Joe Schmo Show. Other examples are My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (modeled after The Apprentice), My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Hell Date (modeled after Blind Date), Superstar USA (modeled after American Idol), Space Cadets (which convinced the hoax targets that they were being flown into space), The $25 Million Hoax (where a woman convinced her friends and family that she had won the lottery) and Invasion Iowa (in which a town was convinced that William Shatner was filming a movie there), and Reality Hell (different target and premise every episode).
Other shows, though not hoax shows per se, have offered misleading information to some cast members in order to add a wrinkle to the competition. Examples include Boy Meets Boy and Joe Millionaire.
Political impact
Reality television's global success has been, in the eyes of some analysts, an important political phenomenon. In some authoritarian countries, reality television voting represents the first time many citizens have voted in any free and fair wide-scale elections. In addition, the frankness of the settings on some reality shows present situations that are often taboo in certain orthodox cultures, like Star Academy Arab World, which shows male and female contestants living together. In 2004, journalist Matt Labash, noting both of these issues, wrote that "the best hope of little Americas developing in the Middle East could be Arab-produced reality TV." In China, after the finale of the 2005 season of Super Girl (the local version of Pop Idol) drew an audience of around 400 million people, and 8 million text message votes, the state-run English-language newspaper Beijing Today ran the front-page headline "Is Super Girl a Force for Democracy?" The Chinese government criticized the show, citing both its democratic nature and its excessive vulgarity, or "worldliness", and in 2006 banned it outright. Other attempts at introducing reality television have proved to be similarly controversial. A Pan-Arab version of Big Brother was cancelled in 2004 after less than two weeks on the air after a public outcry and street protests.
Reality television's global success has been, in the eyes of some analysts, an important political phenomenon. In some authoritarian countries, reality television voting represents the first time many citizens have voted in any free and fair wide-scale elections. In addition, the frankness of the settings on some reality shows present situations that are often taboo in certain orthodox cultures, like Star Academy Arab World, which shows male and female contestants living together. In 2004, journalist Matt Labash, noting both of these issues, wrote that "the best hope of little Americas developing in the Middle East could be Arab-produced reality TV." In China, after the finale of the 2005 season of Super Girl (the local version of Pop Idol) drew an audience of around 400 million people, and 8 million text message votes, the state-run English-language newspaper Beijing Today ran the front-page headline "Is Super Girl a Force for Democracy?" The Chinese government criticized the show, citing both its democratic nature and its excessive vulgarity, or "worldliness", and in 2006 banned it outright. Other attempts at introducing reality television have proved to be similarly controversial. A Pan-Arab version of Big Brother was cancelled in 2004 after less than two weeks on the air after a public outcry and street protests.
Product placement
Product placement, whereby companies and corporations pay to have their products included in television programming for marketing purposes is highly prevalent in reality television.
The following is a list of television shows with the most instances of product placement (11/07–11/08; Nielsen Media Research). Eight out of the ten are reality television shows.
* "The Biggest Loser" 6,248
* "American Idol," 4,636
* "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," 3,371
* "America's Toughest Jobs," 2,807
* "One Tree Hill," 2,575
* "Deal or No Deal," 2,292
* "America's Next Top Model," 2,241
* "Last Comic Standing," 1,993
* "Kitchen Nightmares" 1,853
* "Hell's Kitchen," 1,807
Product placement, whereby companies and corporations pay to have their products included in television programming for marketing purposes is highly prevalent in reality television.
The following is a list of television shows with the most instances of product placement (11/07–11/08; Nielsen Media Research). Eight out of the ten are reality television shows.
* "The Biggest Loser" 6,248
* "American Idol," 4,636
* "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," 3,371
* "America's Toughest Jobs," 2,807
* "One Tree Hill," 2,575
* "Deal or No Deal," 2,292
* "America's Next Top Model," 2,241
* "Last Comic Standing," 1,993
* "Kitchen Nightmares" 1,853
* "Hell's Kitchen," 1,807
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