Had enough Reality yet?
I've had it with reality. Reality TV that is. I do realize that it has replaced the traditional game show as a medium, but it also seems to have edged out a lot of other viewing options.
After the writers went on strike in America last year, the US studios obviously could no longer produce product due to not having writers writing scripts and stories. This meant that consequently they could not sell it to Australian networks. This highlighted to the studios that the writers are presently vital to their production process. Under the new agreement the writers also hoped for a cut in reality TV shows of which a lot are semi-scripted, but this was probably really on the 'wish list' though.
Being the eternal optimist (or should that be eternally disappointed?) I thought that this could lead to new Australia drama series, new Australian crime series, new Australian situational comedies or even possibly something like an Australian sci-fi or supernatural series. But it looks like we are going to get more and more reality TV instead.
Free to air Australian TV also has very little Australian content at present. If not for the media laws which insist that free to air channels must have a certain percentage of Australian content, we would have very little that is produced in Australia. Barring the news and even Australian news gets a significant number of news items from the US and the UK.
So whats the deal? Why all the reality TV? The simple answer is that reality TV is cheap. Damn cheap. They don't need to pay a writer, actors and director. Instead they get a bunch of schmoes place them in a situation with a chance to win some money. Usually the amount of money that the schmoes stand to win at the very end is a faction of what a drama series costs to produce. A relatively decent drama series like ER costs in the vicinity of 3 million US dollars to produce one single episode. Compare this to winning $100,000 Australian (could be AU$200,000 now) at the end of a series of Big Brother.
This means that the networks end up spending a lot less on their content and can boost their profits hugely. But what does this mean for the Australian viewing public?
A quick scan through the weekly TV guide reveals the following about the amount of reality TV content on free to air Australian networks during prime time 6pm to 12pm. The sheer number of reality TV shows is staggering, there are also a good number of shows that come very close to reality TV format but are not listed as reality TV. For the purposes of this exercise I've only noted down the shows that the networks count as reality TV, not the documentaries or lifestyle shows which come bloody close. Australian TV presently has: Scrapheap Challenge, New Inventors, Bush Doctors, The Zoo, The Biggest Loser, So You Think You Can Dance, Border Security, The Force - Behind the Line, A Year with the Royal Family, It takes 2, RSPCA Animal Rescue, The Real Seachange, The Chopping Block, The Amazing Race, Kitchen Nightmares, Amazing Medical Stories, RPA, Saving Kids, Kid Nation. So 19 Reality shows at present and of which 3 are not even Australian reality TV. (EDIT: I forgot to include Bondi Rescue, which would take the total number of shows to an even 20.) This list also does not count the big ones: Australian Idol and Big Brother, as we are still in summer months.
So not that much right? Well the thing is a lot of reality TV runs on more than one night of the week. The Biggest Loser runs 6 nights a week and Scrapheap Challenge runs 7 nights a week. The total number of hours of reality TV aired per week is approximately 20 hours a week. The percentage of total TV viewing hours is harder to work out: 5 free to air networks, 6 hour prime time slot, 7 days a week, so a total of 210 hours of TV aired in this period. So reality TV by my calculations makes up approximately 10% of totally time aired during prime time. But a person could only realistically at an absolute maximum watch 6 hours per night, 42 hours at the absolute maximum per week, of which 10 hours easily could be reality TV due to that most of it screens between 6pm and 8pm. This would make the percentage reality TV in relation to other shows like dramas watched much much higher, say around 20-30% of viewing time in front of the television. Or perhaps even as much as 50% of the time spent in front of the television.
Shows like The Biggest Loser and Top Model suggest to a viewing public the way people should or should not look. A friend refers to this as 'body fascism'. Shows like Big Brother discipline the participants and the audience with an overt moral commentary on how people are supposed to behave in social situations. We also have reality TV shows telling us how our restaurants are supposed to look, shows that show us how we are supposed to dance, and shows that tell us how we are supposed to sing.
George Orwell's dystopia 1984 had everyone being watched by a camera within a viewing screen. Total control of the population was achieved through surveillance. The problem with a modern state ever applying this technology was always going to be in the logistics of surveillance. For every person being watched you needed another person to watch them. How could that be achieved realistically due to the cost? Hows this for an idea then? Perhaps instead of paying people to watch other people you get people to do it for free? Corporations encourage people to have cameras with them 24 hours a day in their phones, and also have them watching other people on "reality TV" on their mobile phones. The entire population eventually falls under surviellance, or at least far greater surveillance than ever before. Indeed it could be argued that blogging is a medium by which surviellance is also achieved with people writing about the most intimate experiences of their day-to-day lives. Is it coincidence that there also has been an increase in such technologies and their usage post 9-11? Perhaps, but unlikely and would be derided as 'conspiracy theory'. Nevertheless is all this so-called "reality" heading towards Orwell's nightmare?
Regardless I would like to see more Australian drama, situational comedy and sci-fi series produced. Reality TV is sometimes fun, but up to a point. When people get home from work each day the need to unwind by telling, listening or watching stories. But stories that offer an escape from reality, as sometimes the reality of life and work is harsh, brutal, boring and depressing. People need stories that are uplifting, exhilarating, scary, wonderful and fantastical. Not more reality.
After the writers went on strike in America last year, the US studios obviously could no longer produce product due to not having writers writing scripts and stories. This meant that consequently they could not sell it to Australian networks. This highlighted to the studios that the writers are presently vital to their production process. Under the new agreement the writers also hoped for a cut in reality TV shows of which a lot are semi-scripted, but this was probably really on the 'wish list' though.
Being the eternal optimist (or should that be eternally disappointed?) I thought that this could lead to new Australia drama series, new Australian crime series, new Australian situational comedies or even possibly something like an Australian sci-fi or supernatural series. But it looks like we are going to get more and more reality TV instead.
Free to air Australian TV also has very little Australian content at present. If not for the media laws which insist that free to air channels must have a certain percentage of Australian content, we would have very little that is produced in Australia. Barring the news and even Australian news gets a significant number of news items from the US and the UK.
So whats the deal? Why all the reality TV? The simple answer is that reality TV is cheap. Damn cheap. They don't need to pay a writer, actors and director. Instead they get a bunch of schmoes place them in a situation with a chance to win some money. Usually the amount of money that the schmoes stand to win at the very end is a faction of what a drama series costs to produce. A relatively decent drama series like ER costs in the vicinity of 3 million US dollars to produce one single episode. Compare this to winning $100,000 Australian (could be AU$200,000 now) at the end of a series of Big Brother.
This means that the networks end up spending a lot less on their content and can boost their profits hugely. But what does this mean for the Australian viewing public?
A quick scan through the weekly TV guide reveals the following about the amount of reality TV content on free to air Australian networks during prime time 6pm to 12pm. The sheer number of reality TV shows is staggering, there are also a good number of shows that come very close to reality TV format but are not listed as reality TV. For the purposes of this exercise I've only noted down the shows that the networks count as reality TV, not the documentaries or lifestyle shows which come bloody close. Australian TV presently has: Scrapheap Challenge, New Inventors, Bush Doctors, The Zoo, The Biggest Loser, So You Think You Can Dance, Border Security, The Force - Behind the Line, A Year with the Royal Family, It takes 2, RSPCA Animal Rescue, The Real Seachange, The Chopping Block, The Amazing Race, Kitchen Nightmares, Amazing Medical Stories, RPA, Saving Kids, Kid Nation. So 19 Reality shows at present and of which 3 are not even Australian reality TV. (EDIT: I forgot to include Bondi Rescue, which would take the total number of shows to an even 20.) This list also does not count the big ones: Australian Idol and Big Brother, as we are still in summer months.
So not that much right? Well the thing is a lot of reality TV runs on more than one night of the week. The Biggest Loser runs 6 nights a week and Scrapheap Challenge runs 7 nights a week. The total number of hours of reality TV aired per week is approximately 20 hours a week. The percentage of total TV viewing hours is harder to work out: 5 free to air networks, 6 hour prime time slot, 7 days a week, so a total of 210 hours of TV aired in this period. So reality TV by my calculations makes up approximately 10% of totally time aired during prime time. But a person could only realistically at an absolute maximum watch 6 hours per night, 42 hours at the absolute maximum per week, of which 10 hours easily could be reality TV due to that most of it screens between 6pm and 8pm. This would make the percentage reality TV in relation to other shows like dramas watched much much higher, say around 20-30% of viewing time in front of the television. Or perhaps even as much as 50% of the time spent in front of the television.
Shows like The Biggest Loser and Top Model suggest to a viewing public the way people should or should not look. A friend refers to this as 'body fascism'. Shows like Big Brother discipline the participants and the audience with an overt moral commentary on how people are supposed to behave in social situations. We also have reality TV shows telling us how our restaurants are supposed to look, shows that show us how we are supposed to dance, and shows that tell us how we are supposed to sing.
George Orwell's dystopia 1984 had everyone being watched by a camera within a viewing screen. Total control of the population was achieved through surveillance. The problem with a modern state ever applying this technology was always going to be in the logistics of surveillance. For every person being watched you needed another person to watch them. How could that be achieved realistically due to the cost? Hows this for an idea then? Perhaps instead of paying people to watch other people you get people to do it for free? Corporations encourage people to have cameras with them 24 hours a day in their phones, and also have them watching other people on "reality TV" on their mobile phones. The entire population eventually falls under surviellance, or at least far greater surveillance than ever before. Indeed it could be argued that blogging is a medium by which surviellance is also achieved with people writing about the most intimate experiences of their day-to-day lives. Is it coincidence that there also has been an increase in such technologies and their usage post 9-11? Perhaps, but unlikely and would be derided as 'conspiracy theory'. Nevertheless is all this so-called "reality" heading towards Orwell's nightmare?
Regardless I would like to see more Australian drama, situational comedy and sci-fi series produced. Reality TV is sometimes fun, but up to a point. When people get home from work each day the need to unwind by telling, listening or watching stories. But stories that offer an escape from reality, as sometimes the reality of life and work is harsh, brutal, boring and depressing. People need stories that are uplifting, exhilarating, scary, wonderful and fantastical. Not more reality.
4 comments:
I wish some programer would explain to me why Sci-fi shows are always shown near to midnight. I missed half of Stargate Atlantis because I didn't read the small print in the guide.
I loathe reality shows. They foster the view that it's okay to laugh or criticise people without consequences.
Hi JahTeh,
thanks for dropping by. Isn't it annoying that most sci-fi in Australia airs after 9pm? Even well written shows like 30 Rock have been edged out to 11pm by reality TV. Sorry to hear you missed half of Stargate. At the moment I seem to be watching less and less TV. Possibly because of 3rd re-write of thesis.
Cheers,
Ed
OH I LOVE reality TV. I watch it all, it's like Poprocks for the brain!!!
My special addiction is Big Brother, oh God I adore that show....Are you vomiting yet?? lol.
Hi Steph,
Thanks for dropping by! Yep, vomiting all over the joint! :P As I said some reality TV is fun, and I am watching So you think you can dance with Alana. My issue is with the overall volume and social affect of reality TV. Also I reckon that reality TV is no good for writers (and people like yourself who write well and could write for things like situational comedies or dramas for instance) in terms of not getting a gig due to the amount of reality TV.
Cheers,
Ed
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