Good observations by Broadcasting & Cable about the fact that while veteran reality shows have been doing very well this season, there have been no new reality "hits" since Dancing With The Stars which began in June, 2005. That's the kind of thing we like to be pointing out first 
The big existing franchises are connecting with audiences as well as ever. Take the season premiere of ABC's Dancing with the Stars, which last week posted the best premiere ratings in the franchise's history. Or the latest, revived edition of The Bachelor, which earlier this month drew its best finale ratings in years. American Idol, while seeing some ratings decline, continues to be television's top show. And Survivor, too, is still performing, prompting CBS recently to order a 19th and 20th edition.
But the networks should enjoy it while it lasts, because unscripted reinforcements are nowhere to be found. No new reality show on the level of the franchise players has broken out in years on the big networks. DWTS, the youngster of the bunch, debuted in June 2005. And while viewers may find their old favorites comforting in these tough times, one thing has proved to be true about television: TV shows, like everything except Cloris Leachman, eventually get old and die.
lots more where that came from at Broadcasting & Cable.
Why didnt they include The Biggest Loser, which has done better then years past? Plus its demo is beating Law and Order: SVU quite frequently.
RJ, I agree, Biggest Loser is another example of a veteran reality show (2004) that’s doing well this year.
CURRENT CYCLE OF AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL HAS MORE VIEWERS THAN CYCLE 10 & CYCLE 11 TOO.
Yesssss. The decline and death of reality TV can’t come fast enough.
Time to bring Rock Star INXS back!
I actually hat reality TV, Rockstar was the only one I liked. At least the people competing felt vaguely rock, not popped out like the unwatchable american idol
Jim
I’d be okay if the only reality show on TV was ANTM.
apprentice is doing ok, too, although not as healthy as some of the others. was that 2004?
Anerica’s Got Talent is a relatively new show isn’t it? Although I suppose even that will be in its 3rd or 4th season this year…
I don’t really buy into the concept that reality TV is dying, I think its just wishful thinking on the part of a lot people involved in television who hate it. In general terms I think the issue is that the established shows have a strangle hold on the audience right now so they don’t feel the need to watch anything else.
When you’ve got American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor, America’s Next Top Model, Biggest Loser and Survivor all performing well for their respective network where does any new reality hit slide into the picture? My guess is that the new hits come when the old ones fall and the audience is looking for something new to watch.
EDIT – I forgot about The Apprentice on Sunday’s, which is performing well for NBC so in reality I guess that just leaves Friday but even that has reality shows, which perform ok for Friday’s.
Alex, America’s Got Talent premiered June 2006, so it’s slightly newer than Dancing with the Stars, but not by much. Plus, it’s a summer show, so while the ratings may be decent, they are not comparable to shows like American Idol or this season’s Bachelor.
The point that this article and commenters are making is that while reality TV is not anywhere near dead, if new shows can’t find any success, how will it live on for very much longer? There’s plenty of room for new shows and there are plenty of them aired every season. Yet none of them catch on. Why would that change when the current successes start to die out?
I don’t think reality shows are the same as the CBS procedurals – you can’t just repeat the format every night of the week and expect them all to hit I don’t think it works like that. Basically I don’t think people are going to watch a new dating show whilst The Bachelor is still holding their attention and I don’t think they’ll jump on a new singing show whilst American Idol is still holding their attention.
At this point I think the networks have all the reality hits they can sustain and they won’t stumble upon a new one until one of the established batch drops.
Alex, you may be right, and reality shows are cheap enough that networks will probably still produce at least a few of them even if every single one of them fails, but I think we’ve already started to see networks cutting back on the amount of new reality they are producing. FOX, which at one point had more reality than anyone, didn’t premiere a single new reality show this spring and only one in the fall. I think we’re currently on a downward trend for reality. And I can only say good riddance.
reality is still alive and well on cable, though. that is, and i thik will continue to be, reality’s realm.
That God…hopefully that means a move back towards scripted shows is in our future…LOL I love the Cloris Leachman comment.
Personally I always thought the huge glut of crime procedurals on CBS are a bigger danger to scripted television than reality shows actually. There will always be a certain amount of scripted television out there, but if all of that portion is being hogged by same-old, same-old, repetitive and tiresome procedurals, then we’re in real trouble.
I’m fine with the veteran reality shows staying – though it sure would be nice if Idol and Dancing with the Stars stopped taking up like three-four hours a week each – and if there’s no new ones popping up, all the better. Then they’re contained.
It’s just that CBS is out of control here. The highest-rated new scripted show was the Mentalist, the last kind of new show we need on television. Unfortunately with the bad economy the networks are going to take less risks, and that’s undoubtedly going to mean more old reliable procedurals.
I don`t understand why people keep asking for more scripted shows. There are like 20 different channels with original scripted programming. There are more scripted shows than ever before.
What’s annoying is people who (like just about everyone) want more of what they like and less of what they don’t like, deluding themselves that what they like is objectively better or more righteous than what they don’t like, which is criticized as poor quality, or predictable, or unoriginal. I wish we’d have more wonderful Emmy-worthy shows like Amazing Race, CSI:NY, The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, and 30 Rock and less worthless crapola like Lost, Survivor, 24, Chuck, and Friday Night Lights. And you know how right I am because I stated it so unequivocally.