DAFOTV V: Reality TV

In the last installment, I discussed how excessive bandwidth leads to what I called “junk genres”; that is, genres of TV show that require as little overhead, planning, writing, etc. as possible.  This is necessary because the amount of quality TV—or quality anything—is relatively fixed, whereas the 24/7 structure of availability that is now the norm has increased the amount of time to be filled.   I enumerated some examples of these genres, to be expanded on later.  This is what I want to do now, regarding what I consider one of the worst TV-related phenomena of the last decade or so:  reality television.

Certainly, plenty has been said about this seemingly ubiquitous genre.  Some very recent articles of interest are here, here, and here.  I want to speak a little more generally.

To clarify what I mean in this discussion by the term “reality TV”, I refer (briefly) to my previous DAFOTV post:

I include things like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Biggest Loser, the recent shows Jamie Oliver has been doing, and the various shows about hoarders, home makeovers, bridesmaids, etc. on TLC, Discovery, and such under the rubric of “reality TV”. I even include Dick Clark’s old Bloopers shows and America’s Funniest Home Videos.  They may not all purport to be documentaries (as An American Family did) or have an explicit game-show aspect (as Survivor does), but the basic principle of just letting the camera roll before “real people” is essentially the same. Also, I realize that it’s not all “real”–there’s jimmying and manipulating—but it’s still easier and cheaper than writing an actual drama or researching a documentary.

So what’s the problem with reality TV?

DAFOTV IV: Junk Genres

Having established the series of posts on this topic, I’m shortening “Decline and Fall of Television” as shown above and going from Arabic to Roman numerals to give a better feel.  Just so you know.

In the last installment, I discussed the issue of bandwidth. The idea is that television programming has evolved from three major commercial networks with about twenty hours of broadcasting daily, and only about three of those dedicated to original programming to dozens of networks which broadcast 24/7. Any creative endeavor is going to produce more mediocrity or outright junk than quality product; thus today, with much more time to be filled and the amount of outstanding creativity being probably no more than it ever was (i.e., in short supply), TV is going to produce and air more junk than ever before. In this post I want to extend this notion, from junk as such to entire junk genres.