Reality Television

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Mia Consalvo

The most established reality shows are the crime-oriented shows. Programs such as Cops, America's Most Wanted, and Unsolved Mysteries appear on a weekly basis and devote themselves to exploring the world of crime and criminals. Because of their established position, they are the form of reality television that has received the most attention from other media and media critics, as well as from the television audience. These shows define reality television and provide the best clue as to what reality television reveals about "reality," especially America's beliefs about crime and law and order in the late twentieth century.

The proliferation of reality crime shows can be explained in part, but only in part, by the ratings that they receive. It is true that America's commercial broadcast system relies on profits to continue operating, and that profit comes from advertisers willing to pay money to reach certain audiences or segments of audiences. If reality crime shows did not draw viewers, they would not remain on the air. Yet, this is not the only factor in their continued appearance. According to Mark Fishman, reality crime shows receive below average ratings in the total number of households that watch television. Additionally, they have a mediocre share of the audience that does tune in to television during the time slots that they appear. What high ratings they do get are the result of one or two of these showsCusually Unsolved Mysteries and Cops. Yet, if these shows do not draw crowds of viewers, how can they stay on the air?

One reason for the continued appearance of reality crime shows, as well as the comedic and shock reality shows, are the low production costs involved in making them. Broadcast television has been in a long-term decline, steadily losing viewers to cable television and other sources of entertainment such as home computers and the Internet. This has led the networks to focus on smaller, more specific audience segments to appeal to advertisers (such as men aged 18-49), and has also led them to invest in low-cost programs. Typically, drama and comedy series are quite expensive. The science-fiction program Star Trek: Voyager cost approximately $1.5 million an episode, and the hospital drama ER cost NBC $13 million per episode in 1998. In contrast, reality crime shows such as America's Most Wanted costCin its early days--$140,000 to $170,000 to produce one weekly half-hour episode. Thus, although they may not draw the same size audience, these shows are cheaper to produce and so can afford to generate smaller audiences and less advertising revenue.

In addition to their low cost, reality crime shows are valuable to broadcasters for other reasons. For example, many of these shows do not have temporal references in them, and so can be shown again and again in syndication. Once a show has survived at least two seasons, there are enough episodes to sell the show into syndication, where the most profits can be made. Crime reality shows can also fill broadcast station owners' need to provide their viewing audience with public-service programming--a requirement for maintaining their FCC license. Because these shows are a somewhat ambiguous mix of news and documentary, station owners can claim that by showing these programs, they are fulfilling their obligation to air public service shows. So, for a host of reasons beyond simply high ratings, these shows remain on the air, and increasing in frequency.