After reading about the history, to fully understand other shows are out there and what kinds, here are some types of shows according to Wikipedia:

Celebrity reality vs. ordinary reality

Scholars have suggested that reality television's success is due to its ability to place ordinary people in extraordinary situations. For example, on the ABC show, The Bachelor, an eligible male dates a dozen women simultaneously, traveling on extraordinary dates to Napa Valley, California and Vail, Colorado. The converse is a recently emerged subset, in which extraordinary people (celebrities) are surrounded by ordinary circumstances. Examples include The Anna Nicole Show, The Osbournes, The Simple Life, and Newlyweds (featuring Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey).


Hidden cameras

Another type of reality programming features hidden cameras rolling when random passersby encounter a staged situation. The reactions of the passersby can be funny to watch, but also reveal truths about the human condition. Allen Funt, an American pioneer in reality entertainment, led the way in the development of this type of show. He created Candid Microphone, which debuted on the ABC Radio Network in 1947, and the internationally successful Candid Camera, which first aired on television in 1953. He later produced a feature-length reality film in 1970 titled, What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? The film was a hidden-camera study of sexuality and mores of the time. In one staged situation, passersby encountered an interracial couple. Modern variants of this type of production, particularly the British Trigger Happy TV, typically stage humorous and/or bizarre situations such as actors in animal costumes pretending to copulate on a crowded sidewalk.


Game shows

Another type of reality TV is the so-called "reality game shows", in which participants are filmed on a nearly-constant basis in an enclosed environment while competing to win a prize. There remains a large gray area between these and traditional game shows, which also involve non-actors in unscripted situations. One aspect that makes these shows more like reality television than other game shows is that the viewing public can play an active role in deciding the outcome. Usually this is done by eliminating participants (disapproval voting) or voting for the most popular choice to win (with some other voting system).

Probably the purest example of a reality game show is Big Brother, a show which still has incarnations in many countries around the world. The series takes its name from the all-seeing authority figure in George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which two-way television screens are fitted in every room, so that people's actions are monitored at all times. (Another work of science-fiction that went even further in predicting reality TV was Nigel Kneale's Year of the Sex Olympics.) In the American version of Big Brother, the concept of cast members getting voted off by the public extended only through the first season; in subsequent seasons, the show went with the more "traditional" approach of having contestants vote each other off.

There remains controversy over whether shows like the UK's Pop Idol (spun off in various countries, including in the U.S. as American Idol) and the similarly-globalized The Weakest Link and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire are truly reality game shows or simply modern incarnations of traditional game show or talent show formats. There does not seem to be much to distinguish these from older shows such as Star Search or The 64,000 Dollar Question, respectively, on the surface; nevertheless, their sudden rise in global popularity at the same time as the arrival of the reality craze leads many people to group such shows under the reality TV umbrella. The Apprentice, Dog Eat Dog and Fear Factor are also included in this group.


Dating shows

Another form of reality TV is the relationship reality show, which follows contestants choosing the hand of a group of suitors. Over the course of the season, the suitors are eliminated one by one until the end, when only the contestant and the final suitor remains. The Bachelor would also fall into this category. Antecedents may be found in The Dating Game from the 1960s.


Sport shows

This type of reality show recruits athletes to engage in sport competition during the show. The featured sport tends to be an individual sport as opposed to a team sport, since the goal is to produce individual winner or winners (depending on the number of divisions such as weight classes) at the end of the season. One match usually takes place in each episode, eliminating the loser. The Contender features boxing, while The Ultimate Fighter showcases mixed martial arts.


Talk shows

Though the tradional format of a "talk show" is that of a host interviewing a featured guest or discussing a chosen topic with a guest or panel of guests, the advent of "trash talk" shows has often made people group the entire category in with reality television. Programs like Ricki Lake, The Jerry Springer Show and others generally recruit(ed) everyday guests by advertising a potential topic that producers were working on for a future program. Topics are frequently outrageous and are chosen in the interest of creating on screen drama, tension or outrageous behaviour. Though not explicitly reality television by traditional standards, this (allegedly) real depiction of someone's life, even if only in a brief interview format, is frequently considered akin to broader-scale reality T.V. programming.


Next: RealityTheProblemsAndEffectsOnSociety
Main: MonicaKrasFinalProject