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I wish I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if reality TV is dead. While I get where the question is coming from, my answer is always the same: A genre can’t die by itself. Only programmers can kill it.
A genre gets tired when the innovation and fresh approach that broke through the clutter become trusted formulas for ratings success.
We’ve seen what happens when a hit shows spawns endless copycat variations elsewhere of wives, hoarders, Alaskans, pawners and bridezillas, to name a few. Milking an original idea ultimately devalues the whole lot and sends fleeing viewers elsewhere.
It’s instructive to recall that at the start of reality TV’s modern rise, scripted drama was in a similarly bleak place. The big bucks combo of ratings and after-market revenue for closed-end procedurals was impossible for programmers to resist. That led to a plethora of case-making, gavel-pounding and crime-solving shows on broadcast, not to mention second runs on cable. The audience couldn’t get enough – that is, until they could.
Because of this fatigue, and fueled in no small part by the 1988 strike by the Writers Guild of America, reality TV became the shiny new TV toy. Ushered in first by Cops and The Real World, followed by Survivor, Big Brother, The Apprentice, The Bachelor, American Idol et al, these shows (many of whose formats came from overseas) seemed as daring and experimental as drama felt predictable and controlled.
With the rise of high-end reality like Project Runway and Top Chef, Bravo’s “Watch What Happens” brand signaled both a challenge to the industry. It was a promise that viewers flocked to, paving the way for their now-ubiquitous Real Housewives franchise, and giving unscripted series cultural cred.
When we at TruthCo began studying reality TV in 2010, just as ratings for the finale of Jersey Shore’s first season stunned the industry (and MTV), we identified an appetite for “exotic subcultures.” These hidden pockets of America had been marginalized by the previous era, which prioritized financial success and superficial ideas of perfection over humanity and social purpose. But when the financial collapse of 2008 lifted up the rock, Snooki crawled out from under.
You know the rest. There were pickers and pawners, Amish and little people, Gypsies and swamp people, and they were soon everywhere. In the shadow of the economic collapse, reality TV reflected the American underbelly we’d never before been allowed to see, and we couldn’t get enough.
During this time, with the WGA strike settled, scripted showrunners and writers largely had the luxury of being off the radar – i.e., left alone. They could coddle their visions without being noted to death, because reality TV was sucking all of the networks’ attention. They could try out new formats, fresh faces and crazy ideas without the pressure of the overnights looming like a guillotine blade over their babies.
And so, just as reality TV hit a wall, scripted drama experienced an artistic renaissance. Limited-run series, box office stars, unproven showrunners, cinematic aesthetics and dark antiheroes – none of this was how hit shows were created in the past. And anyone who’s a fan of House of Cards, Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead will tell you, they’d never seen anything like it.
Along with drama, comedy is increasingly becoming an artistic platform for auteurs. We’ve already seen how the darker humor of Louis C.K. and Amy Schumer have elevated their status from comedians to cultural commentators, even sociopolitical advocates. It’s a sign of something new when a comedian becomes a face of gun control (as Amy Schumer did post-Trainwreck shooting), or publicly defends an unpopular politician (as Louis C.K. recently did for New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio).
So can reality TV take a page from drama’s reinvention book? Only if we recognize that success and laziness killed the form by way of rampant, unabashed derivation. What was once novel became ordinary, and the exotic quickly turned to the expected. And all that relentless sameness made new forms of drama seem radical in comparison. Today, programmers need to create, not rehash, in order to cut through the clutter.
It’s time for reality TV to be more self-critical, and revive its non-traditional roots. We’ve already seen some interesting shifts in the genre, most notably a rise of premium content and social issues that echo similar shifts in the drama and comedy genres. There are hybrids like UnREAL, offering next-level drama for reality hate-watchers. We’ve also noted a shift in portrayals of conservative characters as sympathetic underdogs, and liberal characters as more comedic and playful. Perhaps this is an attempt at being more balanced in an election year. But from a content POV, it’s doing something different than the rest, and for viewers, that’s new and interesting – and that drives cultural cred.
Culturally speaking, reality TV reflects and helps us process our world today. In an era where most viewers don’t watch news on TV, it is its closest parallel – a medium by which we see and seek to understand who we are, and how we differ. If we want to make progress and grow as a society, breathing new life into reality TV is a good place to start.
TruthCo. is a cultural branding and insights company, headed by CEO Linda Ong, that analyzes the current cultural landscape to deliver actionable recommendations that keep entertainment brands and their offerings relevant.
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