Why do we love to hate reality television? For the millennial generation, there seems to be an obsession with reality tv because this type of content is expanding largely; this increase includes a wide variety, ranging from competition to dating to family life drama. According to the Washington Post, there are currently over 300 reality television shows.
For decades, television games shows have made up the genre known as reality television. However, that genre would soon expand tenfold into a completely new concept of reality tv. The first reality television show began in 1970, titled “An American Family.” The show followed a family of 7, known as the Loud family. It chronicled their lives over a seven month period.
During the 1990s, MTV began its transition out of a strictly music video world of the 1980s and into reality television. Such shows include The Real World (1992) and The Challenge (1998), which are still on the air. This trend continued to increased drastically in the early 2000s. MTV was constantly creating new reality television shows during this time; from the Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica (2003), Laguna Beach (2004) and its spin-off The Hills (2006), My Super Sweet 16 (2005), and the list continues.
I remember watching so many of these shows when I was in high school. Partly if I had nothing else to do on a Saturday. Mostly because these programs were the majority of the content that aired on MTV. Whereas today, there is more of a selection with choosing what you want to watch from your computer; with programs like Netflix, Hulu, and network companies online sites that give you access to choose a show.
Yet, reality television still maintains its place as a preferred television genre today among the younger generations. Lets take a look at the numbers.
According to August 2015 records from statistic.com, the genre of reality/competition television programs ranked second most popular among the age group of 18 to 35 year olds. Deadline.com reported that Keeping Up With the Kardashians had increased in viewership from season 11. The Kardashians raked in a total of 3.2 million viewers during the season 12 premiere.
Tvline.com reported that in May 2016, The Bachelor ranked number 4 in the top reality show category, with a demographic of those ages 18 to 49. The Bachelor brought in 3 million viewers in its last season. Big Brother kicked off the season 18 premiere with 6.1 million viewers. Yet, despite this large viewership, tvline.com reported that this outcome was a 13% decrease from Big Brother season 17 premiere.
But how much of this is actually true. Does any or the majority of reality tv content use a type of script? In an article by bustle.com, Whitney Port of The Hills tv show reported to US Weekly in an interview that the show was not scripted. Yet, Port did confess that the production team did influence the cast to be more dramatic in certain situations. Port’s co-star, Kristin Cavallari, had a different opinion from her time on The Hills. Cavallari reported in a 2013 interview that the production team did influence what the cast said. “We never got an actual script, but they would text us what to say,” she stated.
The 2007 popular reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, has also faced allegations of some scripted and staged material. In an article posted by business insider, blogger Mariah Smith analyzes each episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians to a painstakingly, meticulous degree. Smith matches the shows episodes with the Kardashians’ Instagram accounts in order to tell how scenes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians may be out of order and somewhat false.
What do you think? Are reality television shows completely staged and scripted, or “real”? Maybe these reality shows have some implements of scripted material and staged actions to them. Could this result be for the sake of what people in the television business view as entertainment? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.