Tuned In: 'Reality Bites Back' explores truth about reality TV
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Jennifer L. Pozner: "I'm trying to get people to learn how to retrain their critical eye."
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Viewers who despise reality TV have a supporter in their corner: Jennifer L. Pozner, author of the new book "Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV" ($16.95, Seal Press), which examines this popular-but-polarizing TV genre that has long existed but has really taken over prime time in the past decade.
What an ideal time to nip at the heel of reality TV: This week alone sees the premieres of "The Hasselhoffs" (celeb-reality show starring David Hasselhoff and his daughters, 10 tonight, A&E), season two of "The Sing-Off" (a cappella groups compete, 8 p.m. Monday, NBC), "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys" (women with gay men as best friends, 10 p.m. Tuesday, Sundance) and "Hookers: Saved on the Strip" (a former prostitute tries to help other women out of the streetwalking life, 10 p.m. Wednesday, Investigation Discovery)
These series follow on the recent premieres of "Bridalplasty" (women vie for plastic surgery before their wedding, 9 tonight, E!) and "Gold Rush" (tough guys from Oregon go gold mining in Alaska, 10 p.m. Friday, Discovery Channel).
Not all reality shows are created equal, of course. Some are better ("The Amazing Race") and others are worse ("The Hasselhoffs," see review today). There is also a variety of sub-genres: Dating competitions, docu-series and nearly scripted celeb-reality shows.
My take on reality TV has long been this: It's become a genre just like any other (comedy, drama, news) and it won't go away until viewers quit watching it, which doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon. Who's to blame for this lowest common denominator programming? Network executives for putting it on the air, advertisers for supporting it and viewers for lapping it up.
Ms. Pozner argues that networks are not giving viewers what they want because reality show ratings are lower than ratings for quality scripted shows that get canceled. In some cases that's true -- networks will tolerate lower ratings from some reality shows that are significantly less expensive to produce than scripted dramas. But not all reality shows are cheap ("Survivor," with age, has gotten pretty pricey over the years) and it would not be fair to compare ratings for an inexpensive-to-produce series like "Bridalplasty" on basic cable to NBC's recently canceled "Outlaw." Broadcast and cable channels operate using different economic models and what's a hit for cable would be a dud for broadcast. ("Outlaw" averaged 5.8 million viewers and got canceled; "Bridalplasty" premiered with almost 900,000 total viewers, a death knell for a broadcast network series but that turnout improved on E!'s norm in the time period for the previous four weeks by 20 percent.)
First Published December 5, 2010 12:00 am
