Thursday

History speaks to
reality's untimely end

Remember the big game shows? No? Here's why.

By Ed Robertson

   From a historical point of view, last week’s Nielsen ratings were fascinating.
    One-fourth of the top 25 network shows for the week ending Feb. 2 were reality-based competitions. Fox’s “Joe Millionaire,” as well as the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of “American Idol,” each made the top 10, while “The Bachelorette” on ABC, “Star Search” on CBS and “Fear Factor” on NBC finished at 16, 18 and 22.
    Maybe this has more to do with the month of January than anything else, but television hasn’t seen so many game shows at the top in the ratings since the late 1950s.
    There’s more to come.
   “Survivor: The Amazon” starts tonight on CBS, while another round of “Star Search” begins next week.
   ABC’s “Are You Hot: The Search for America’s Sexiest People” also premieres tonight, with its “Survivor” knockoff “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” set to go on Feb.19.
   NBC will soon launch its own two talent competitions, “Second Chance” (“American Idol” for seniors) and “The Most Talented Kid in America.”
    As long as viewers keep tuning in, we can bank on the networks “keeping it real.”
    But for how long? Is reality television now a legitimate mainstream TV genre, or is it yet another fad with a limited shelf life, perhaps with an expiration date just around the corner?
If history is any indication, the answer is the latter. Networks will be cleaning out their refrigerators of these expired has-been shows before we know it.
    When we speak of reality TV, let's first be clear about what we mean. Strictly speaking, reality TV refers to that semi-documentary style of programming first made popular 10 years ago on cable, where the lives of ordinary people are depicted and the “drama” plays out, unscripted, over a set period of time. MTV’s “Real World” and “The Osbournes” are “true” reality shows, as are “Anna Nicole” on E! and “Hard Knocks” on HBO.
“Survivor,” “American Idol,” and most other so-called network reality shows are really game shows with a reality twist, and it is these shows that network executives talk about when they speak of this new genre.
   History informs us that game shows, even though they have a long history on TV, are fragile entities and have no real strong history on primetime.
   In these game shows, the game plays out over several weeks, while the contestants vie for the big prize, be it a million bucks or a million-dollar recording contract.
   Like a good game show, these programs come with a built-in rooting interest. Audiences find themselves pulling for or against certain contestants, whether it’s for Kelly Clarkson to win “American Idol,” or for Jerri Manthey to be booted off “Survivor.”
   Game shows, of course, have been a fixture on television since the dawn of the medium. Chatty, urbane shows such as “You Bet Your Life,” “To Tell the Truth,” and “What’s My Line?” were a staple on primetime throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. “Line,” in fact, was a Sunday night tradition for 17 years.
But it took a gimmick—namely, the frenetic “big money” shows such as “Twenty-One” and “The $64,000 Question”—to bring the genre to the top of the ratings.
   “Twenty-One” and “$64,000 Question” were both top 10 shows from ’56 through ’58. “Question” was so popular, it led to an equally popular spinoff, “The $64,000 Challenge.”
   Of course, “Twenty-One” and “Question” crashed and burned as a result of the quiz show scandals of 1958.
Even if it weren’t for the controversy, though, chances are the big money shows, like most fads in television, would have died soon anyway.
   Go back through the history of network programming, and you’ll see that for every staple, such as the sitcom, the cop show, or the TV game show, there are periods of time where the schedules are laden with “gimmick”-oriented shows.
    For example, the situation comedy in and of itself is an evergreen, while the sitcom with a supernatural twist (such as witches, genies, ghosts, or Munsters) was a fad of the ‘60s. The cop show genre is an evergreen, whereas cop shows with a gimmick (fat cops, bald cops, old cops, cops in bikinis) were a fad of the ‘70s.
    Generally speaking, most fads in television have a shelf life of about three years, during which time you’ll see any number of knockoffs that hope to capture the magic of the original. While one or two imitators may catch on, the rest, for the most part, tend to quickly disappear.
   When the trendsetter finally dies, the fad usually dies with it.
    Both “Twenty-One” and “$64,000 Question” were well into their third seasons in primetime when the quiz show scandals first broke.
   Look at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and the return of the big money game show in recent years, and you’ll see that the same pattern has held true.
   After taking the country by storm in the summer of 1999, “Millionaire” came back that November to dominate sweeps. By New Year’s, game shows were all over the place, from Dick Clark’s “Winning Lines” to Chuck Woolery’s “Greed.” Even “Twenty-One” came back, hosted by Maury Povich.
    None of these shows caught on, and it was only a matter of time before "Millionaire" began its descent into quick fade.
   Along the way, distracting some attention, came "Survivor," a dramatic twist on "Millionaire" that created a whole new legion of wannabes, such as "The Mole,” “The Weakest Link," “Fear Factor” and “The Chamber.”
     Other than “Fear,” none has lasted, but no sooner had America started to become bored than a new twist on the genre waltz in in the form of talent competitions a la “American Idol.”
     We wonder how long these will last. Probably not much longer. There are already signs they are sinking.
     “Millionaire” faded after three seasons, and the end may be nearing for “Survivor,” which is also in its third year. While it performed solidly last fall, the numbers for the fifth edition were down noticeably from that of the previous four.
   Has “Survivor” finally petered out? CBS doesn’t seem to think so. Not only is a seventh edition scheduled for the fall, the network is already encouraging would-be contestants to apply.
    Marketing savvy, or wishful thinking?
     It may be a bit of both, along with a dab of desperation. One sign of that: CBS is touting the competition in the Amazon as a battle of the sexes, men versus women. This suggest a need to goose up the format, putting it in the ranks of celebrity matches of the sort that signaled the end of "Millionaire."
Which suggests that the torch for “Survivor” is about to be snuffed. If that is the case, history tells us, it may take with it, tucked in its coffin, the end of the reality craze.
    Indeed, if history is any indication, the tribe has already spoken.

Ed Robertson is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area who covers television.

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