Week 12

Reality TV is a television programming that presents "humorous" situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors,. The genre exploded as a phenomenon around 1999–2000 with the success of such television series as Big Brother and Survivor. Programs in the reality television genre are commonly called reality shows and often are produced in a television series. Documentaries, television news and sports television are usually not classified as reality shows.

The genre covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game show or quiz shows to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as Big Brother Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of day-to-day life, at times utilizing sensationalism to attract audience viewers.

Hill (2005) states ‘Reality TV’ has undergone changes over years and first explains it is a ‘genre in transition’. From legal and emergency report programs, Hill looks to analyse the threshold between factual and fictional TV. ‘perhaps the most traditional industry term for reality TV is factual entertainment. The term usefully merges factual programming with entertainment-based television, and highlights hybridization, a common generic feature of most reality programmes.’
Hill (2005, p. 108) clarifies; ‘Another traditional industry term is that of popular factual, a term that links popular audiences with a variety of factual television genres and formats.’
Hill uses the name of ‘popular factual’ as a basis for his analysis.

Public television audiences interviewed gave a loose consensus that ‘viewers equated reality TV with ‘cameras following people around.’’

Hill (2005, p. 114) concludes ‘There is no one definition of reality programming, but many, competing definitions of what has come to be called the reality genre.’