Reality programming accounts for more than 25% of prime time viewing on the five broadcast networks. The popularity of reality programming was helped along by the writers strike in the US a few years ago. Many cable channels show a lot of reality TV too and continue showing repeats. The cost of a network reality show is approximately $1 million per hour. This is about a half of the cost of a scripted show. The salaries relate. Producer's salaries start at approximately $1,000 per week on a reality show which is one third of the rate on a scripted show. (Wyatt, 2009)
These reality posts are usually independent contractor positions which means less benefits and little job security. Seems to me, it is a typical economic model for the 21st century. Reality shows unlike scripted dramas or comedies, can be shot on a seven-days-a-week schedule, and takes maximum advantage of the availability of the contestants.
According to Wyatt (2009) "the lesson to anyone entering the television industry is pretty stark: Reality is where the jobs are." The indications are that this is the area of the industry that will continue to thrive in the US. One argument for this is that the new generation of practitioners have grown up watching reality television and they will gravitate towards what they know. So says "Chris Coelen, chief executive of RDF Media USA, whose productions include "Don't forget the Lyrics" for Fox and "Wife Swap" for ABC" (Wyatt, 2009).
Reality TV is all over the place. Whether this is good or bad is not really what I would like to address. Perhaps RT is here for more time. If it is - why worry? Can't reality TV be good TV? Can't we produce RT that is socially aware and intelligent? Really, when people bite their thumbs at reality TV, I wonder what is so much better? Is it the sitcoms? The news? The soap operas? Or are they comparing RT to the list of "best movies" in their heads? An unfair comparison I suggest.
If RT is the ground zero for the future of TV, (whether recent or afar) then isn't it time to start measuring it up against the sociological, psychological, aesthetic, and perhaps even Marxist criteria we have in media studies, and strive to make it better?
We should not snub our noses at what is most popular just because. We should aspire to understand the attraction and then maybe even contribute to making it better.
Doneen Arquines should be congratulated. She took the task at hand and worked hard to get into the business. She has managed by the accounts of Edward Wyatt to grin and bear it, pay her dues and continue working. (It probably helped that she studied a little anthropology.)
In this 21st century it may be appropriate to respect those who manage to break into the business. It may be prudent to listen to what they have to say.
Source for this post:
Wyatt, E. (2009, July 26). Television fledgling keeps it real. The New York Times, Arts and Leisure Section, P. 1-17.
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1 comment:
Tommy,
That's a thought provoking post and a challenging one also. It's so easy to dismiss reality TV as either too trivial to merit enquiry or as being emblematic of 'the end of civilisation as we know it'. I don't think it is either of these things but I think your suggestion to see if it can be made better is intriguing but problematic.
You point out in your post that RTV, as far as broadcasters are concerned, is the gift that just keeps giving. It's cheap to make, has potentially huge audiences, which advertisers crave, and it produces a conveyer belt of short-lived celebrities that the media generally can market and make money from. As soon as one RTV celebrity faces the dying of the light there is always a new one to take his or her place.
And this is really my objection to RTV it produces a prurient fascination with the personality, the individualised life-stories of its celebrities, all of whom are presented as having been on a 'journey' of personal discovery. There is simply no room for any consideration of the social, or the broader historical and political forces at work in the lives of the people they introduce into our living rooms. Reality TV and celebrity with their focus on personalities perpetuate the myth that we are authors of our own destiny, just 'following our dream', reducing us all to narcissistic snowflakes
Now, you could improve reality TV by incorporating a more sociological interest in its contestants but that would turn it into an entirely different genre. And we already have a name for that. It's called documentary.
So, in the words of Father Ted I say 'Down with this sort of thing'.
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