What makes a great reality TV show?

Reality Television is famous (or perhaps infamous!) for making celebrities out of nobodies but the question is what makes a great reality television show stand out from all the others?

The answer lies partly in familiarity – the more used to a reality TV show concept we become, the more bland and less appealing that show becomes. The more formulaic the concept is, the less ‘realistic’ the resulting programe is. There is also a balance to be achieved between forced realism and true realism and by that I mean just how far people are being themselves or are they just acting up for the camera. In the first series of Big Brother in the UK the contestants, the audience and the shows creators had no real idea of how the concept would work and whether it would be engaging enough to deliver high ratings – it soon became apparent that they were onto a winner but as subsequent series have come and gone and we know what to expect, the contestants have become less realistic as they try too hard to be entertaining and therefore less like their true selves, and the formula has begun to look very tired. The same could be said of Wife Swap where more and more ridiculous swaps are engineered to secure high ratings.Perhaps the answer lies in not repeating a successful programme to such an extent that it becomes a parody of its original concept.

So what is reality television? – ‘Reality television is a genre of television programming which presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and features ordinary people instead of professional actors’- using this definition will help to show which 3 key elements should go into making a classic reality television show.

1. No Script – this means that the contestants are not coached into producing certain reactions to specific situations instead the events are allowed to unfold naturally as they would in the real world. Don’t engineer it just let it happen!

2. Real People – more and more people who are not ordinary and who may be models, actors etc are being used which detracts from what reality TV should be about unless of course the programme relates directly to one of those disciplines. Reality television needs real people!

3. Know when to stop! – Leave the people wanting more would be a good adage for reality TV! Just because something works once or twice does not mean it has to be repeated incessantly until ratings plummet!

One in seven teenagers in the UK hope to become famous through Reality TV which is quite a frightening statistic but let them have their fifteen minutes of fame for the right reasons and not because they have been humiliated in front of millions on live television. Reality TV can be great so producers and programme makers really need to think before they start!