Reality TV.

[MWB]

Here in NZ there seems to be more Reality shows than anything else. For instance, tonight on one channel there's 4 reality shows in a row! And every night there are 1 or 2 on every channel.
Maddening isn't it?!

[VHG]

I am afraid we are entering (or are already in) the era of cheap rubbish TV.

A few years ago, with just a few TV channels, each got a fair share of the advertising revenue so they were all fairly well off.

They could employ good script writers and good actors and put on quality dramas, and even quality "soaps".

Now we in the UK have about 300 channels available on satellite TV (most showing repeats of old programs) and their share of the TV audience is less than 1% each.

The advertising revenue is now shared between all these 300 stations, so they are all getting poorer and poorer.

No money to pay good script writers, no money to pay good actors.

Hey, lets just stick a few "freaks" in a studio, turn the camera on them, and we have a 1 hour program.

So was reality TV was born.

Nobody needs to write a script, nobody needs to pay any actors, and if you stick a camera on any group of people for 10 hours you can probably edit it down to 1 hour of "good" TV.

So that is where we are, but not sure where it leaves TV when we all get fed up with these reality shows.

[VHG]

I fact we have really hit rock bottom with "reality TV" in the UK in the last few weeks.

A couple of years ago on Big Brother we had a really stupid woman who was so awful she became an object of good natured scorn (I wont give her name as she has had enough publicity).

When the show finished she made a "career" out of being this stupid woman and was on TV quiz shows, made a perfume, open a hair dressing salon (all of which was featured on reality TV shows).

Then she went on "Celebrity Big Brother" (although she was no celebrity) but was caught up in a racist row with an Asian woman on the show and left in disgrace.

For the last couple of years she has been very out of favour, although in that time she has got married, had 2 kids, and her boyfriend has been in prison.

In the last few months she announced she had cancer and has said she does not have long to live.

So she has milked this situation to its fullest.

Selling her hospital pictures to the highest bidder, getting married and selling the story to a glossy magazine, and she seems to be on every newspaper front cover.

Even our prime minister was reduced to talking about her the other day.

So we have gone from everyone hating her to "everyone" feeling sorry for her.

So now we have a strange situation where a non-person from a reality TV show has now become the most talked about person in the UK at the moment.

I have to say it is a new low for our country.

[chinadog]

There's another one starting soon about people meeting and saying goodbye at airports! I wont be watching it.

[socket2008]

Reality tv is cheap to make. Take it from someone that knows from experience.

Michael Grade's recent budget announcement cuts on ITV will ensure more of the same. You can bank on it.