Writer’s Strike Means Reality TV

For everyone who loves watching reality television, next year promises to be a year chock full of shows about regular — or as regular as people can be who are featured on TV reality shows — doing wild and crazy things for the camera.

Send praises to the television writers and producers who are currently battling over what writers should be paid for television shows streamed on the internet since their deadlock means that unscripted entertainment will be on the menu starting in January 2008.

Writes Edward Wyatt in the New York Times:

The flood of reality programming will be the first repercussion that many Americans will see in prime time from the writers’ strike, an event that has drawn relatively little concern beyond Hollywood and Manhattan. But the strike looks likely to continue; talks between the writers and Hollywood studios collapsed Friday, with the sides still deeply divided. …

The strike-fueled growth in reality programming also has the potential to change the face of prime-time television for years to come. Reality programs generally do not employ union-represented writers. While the most popular dramas and comedies will resume production of new episodes once the strike ends, the strike could mean the end for several new series, like “Bionic Woman” on NBC or “K-Ville” on Fox, that have struggled to gain a regular audience this fall. Just as the last writers’ strike, in 1988, helped to spawn a new form of vérité entertainment epitomized by programs like “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted,” the current writers’ strike will witness the debut of a number of new reality concepts.

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