More Television

It's been a few days since I last posted, my apologies. I'm thinking about reality TV.

It's a little late to think of reality TV as a phenomenon. It is obviously a successful format...not because the shows tend to make a huge profit but because they tend to turn a profit in the first place. The crews can be smaller and you don't have to pay Schwimmer, Aniston, Cox, and the other F*R*I*E*N*D*S something like $2 million and episode EACH.

So fewer ads will cover your costs and anything past that is gravy.

You end up with shows like Monday night's "Heavy."

This show followed a 350+ lb woman and a 650+ lb man around as they tried to lose weight.  The show followed these two people and two trainers on through their days and months.  It was light on flash and light on graphics.  Very inexpensive to do.  Kind of like late night shows.  The salaries are crazy for the hosts, but they get that huge salary but the network gets to put their show on every night.  So the talent fees are lower than the major series.  And on a show-by-show basis, so are the crew fees.

But anyway, "Heavy" seems like a great show.  I'll admit that I fell asleep, but that had more to do with the Chicagoan and the baby who I spent my day with.  It was trashy but also hard-hitting.  We were brought inside the world of the extremely obese to see them try to help themselves get better.  Cool stuff.

Not all reality is good though.  "Jersey Shore" is definitely trash, as is "The Bachelor(ette)."  Bu they're incredibly successful.  "American Idol" is incredibly well done and is one of the highest rated shows on TV.  It's got a big budget for reality shows, but that doesn't mean it's got a big budget for other shows.  See, here's the secret: keep talent costs down.  "Idol" is an example of the talent making a lot of money, but production costs are still down because they don't have to pay for three weeks of shooting to make one episode.  It's a day per episode.  Period.

That's why the news is still on.  Nobody watches the nightly news anymore, but you don't have to pay outlandish salaries to five people.  Maybe one anchor, but (s)he is going to be on every night.  Brian Williams is expensive but NBC sure gets some bang for their buck.

Anyway, I don't really know what the end to this posting is.  I think it's that reality TV isn't as bad as we all want to think it is?

I'm not sure.  Sorry.