Surviving Reality Television

Dropped in the middle of nowhere. Secluded and scared you nervously scour this unknown territory for food and water. Overpowered by your stomach’s undying growl you result to eating bugs and drinking dirty water. All the while the scorching sun is beating upon your hot, tired, and neglected body. Bad dream? No, because a Pontiac Aztec SUV is just around the corner, and a million dollars is up for the taking. This is reality… or at least, reality television. Hotter than ever, reality television (like the overwhelming popular show Survivor) is creating cause for concern. As promotional plugs for reality shows consume their affiliated news program, as advertisements are no longer subliminal, and as the importance and visibility of the public sphere model continues to dissipate.

The public sphere model focuses on informing the public strictly on the issues, and allowing for the viewer to make their own informed opinion. The best example of this model is seen with Britain’s BBC. The United States, however, has adopted the commercial or business model, which is “based on attracting audiences to be ‘sold’ to advertisers,” explains John Sinclair, in his essay, Contemporary World Television. This approach along with other factors has lead to the creation of reality shows.

In Matthew McAllister’s essay, Selling Survivor, The Use of TV News to Promote Commercial Entertainment, he evaluates Survivor, a ‘backstabbing survival of the fittest’ show that bombards viewers with advertisements. An example of this is seen in an episode of Survivor. Before the show began, a commercial for the Pontiac Aztec SUV popped up on the screen as the shows sponsor, then a contestant won a challenge, his reward? A Pontiac Aztec. The contestant then continued to plug the “coolness” of the Aztec until commercial break, which just happened to be a commercial for the Aztec.

McAllister finds that this type of advertisement, which is becoming more prevalent in reality television, disheartening, “blatant blurring of commercial and program raises concerns about the control over programming decisions that may be relinquished to marketers and promoters.” McAllister finds the promotion of these content-less shows even more alarming, “the mixing of the commercial and the promotional with news programming is more problematic and has been an enduring concern in the field of media studies.” McAllister, then goes on to discuss the Early Show, the morning news program on CBS, which features the newest contestant to be kicked off from the Survivor the night before.

This mergence of lines between promotion, advertisement, and reality shows isn’t seen only on the CBS network. When it was wildly popular, the Apprentice contestants seemed to be guaranteed a spot on the morning news program, the Today Show, to let us in on the Donald and other juicy gossip that the American people just can’t seem to get enough of. McAllister believes that these shows, “represent many disturbing trends in modern commercial and promotional culture: the power of commercial sponsorship to influence content; the invasion of entertainment texts by product placement; the increased media life of promotional messages through the Internet and, the most significantly for this essay, the use of news to promote corporate holdings.”

The role that network news has taken to promote their television shows, or other products (ex. Oscar gowns for less by this brand…) takes the information out of the program and puts the commercial in. The American people who still watch the news should care that they are now learning less about political and social issues and more about how to “outwit and outlast” on Survivor. “Ultimately CBS’s use of news to publicize Survivor sets the promotional bar higher than it has been before for television news and paints one particularly disturbing picture of the role of news in commercial culture. Although this role may be beneficial to corporate owners and advertisers, it also undermines the needs of a democratic society,” said McAllister.