Examining the Economic Sense and Growing Popularity of Reality TV
Whether you love them or hate them, you can't help but agree that reality TV has completely changed the television programming landscape. In this article we will examine this from an economic perspective - in other words why reality TV makes sense from a dollars and cents point of view.
Firstly, anything that happens in the marketplace has to make economic sense and without a doubt the market for TV shows is highly competitive, as is the market for advertising dollars. Television programing executives have many choices of what shows to "buy" and run - and in the end their decisions must be based upon the ability of the shows to draw lots of viewers from the right demographic so that pricey advertising can be sold during the show. In addition, the cost of buying or producing the show must be taken into account. The difference between the expected revenue generated by the show and what the show costs to produce or buy, determines its viability - whether it ever airs or not. After all, business is business!
Here we see the key to why producing reality TV has grown to dominate the market - it is relatively inexpensive to produce compared to high budget Hollywood productions with expensive and temperamental actors, screenwriters, directors, sets, special effects, etc. From my reading, the typical scripted drama or comedy show costs between 3 and 10 times what a high quality reality show of the same length costs! Combine that with the relative ease of finding people to participate in reality shows, compared to finding the right stars, directors and writers for the scripted variety and one can quickly see the appeal of reality TV programming.
Of course, none of the above factors that demonstrate the relative ease and low cost of producing reality TV would even matter unless these shows appealed to people - and based on the popularity of shows like American Idol, Jersey Shore, and the Real Housewives of Wherever - they appeal plenty.
Just as a rough guide, we prefer to classify reality TV into 3 broad categories which we will call Social, Talent, and Criminal. Social shows like Survivor and The Osbournes focus on people's relationships, whereas Talent, like American Idol, focuses on their abilities like modeling or singing or dancing, and Criminal, well you get the point!
Some shows now combine reality TV with stars - like Dancing With The Stars. This way people get to see their favorite stars up close and personal - sort of like in real life. When we think about any of the most popular shows of TV's past like I Love Lucy, Happy Days, or Friends we can see that they attempted to be realistic and believable by making people identify with the characters as if they were real people in the audience's lives. Reality TV takes this urge for people to identify with what/who they watch one step further.
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