Austin360 blogs > TV Blog > Archives > 2008 > July > 23 > Entry
Net chiefs embarrassed by reality shows? Absolutely not!
Anyone expecting a network chief to be embarrassed by the influx of cheap reality shows is going to be disappointed.
As long as the show is cheap to produce and grabs a few million viewers, cheesy reality apparently remains a genre to be proud of — even something as low-class as the marriage-busting, polygraph-dependent “Moment of Truth.”
“You know, this is Fox,” shrugged the network’s entertainment president Kevin Reilly in Los Angeles last week. “We never give up on our DNA. I have no excuses for it.”
Stephen McPherson, ABC’s president of entertainment, was equally sanguine about one of his network’s seedier summer entries.
“ ‘Wipeout’ is just a really fun summer show,” McPherson told skeptical TV critics. “It’s pure escapism.”
McPherson said more episodes of “Wipeout” (that’s the one with the huge balls that an assortment of sad and usually overweight people bounce off of and into a mud pool) likely will be ordered, but probably only for airing in summer. In the most recent Nielsen ratings, “Wipeout” attracted more than 8.5 million viewers, making it seventh on the Top 20 list for that week in July.
It’s hard to argue with the success of some of these show, even though you’ve got to wonder about the appeal. Ranking up there along with the odious “Whipeout” in last week’s Top 20 were NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” (No. 2), Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” (5), NBC’s “Celebrity Family Feud” (12), Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” (15) and CBS’s “Greatest American Dog” (19).
Let’s just hope viewers will refine their tastes a bit when the really good scripted comedies and dramas return.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Reality TV
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.