INSTANT REALITY

"Get me a nobody and pay them cheap!"

I've noticed something about television that I think is fascinating. Almost every single show I think is worth watching is on cable channels, not the big three original networks. ABC, NBC, CBS; I care about almost nothing they put on. The shows I enjoy such as The Glades, Burn Notice, Good Eats, Holmes On Holmes, and so on all are on cable networks. NCIS, CSI and CSI New York are the only network shows I even care to watch - and I watch them on cable reruns.

I'm certain almost all of these shows were pitched at one point to a regular network, and they all were turned down. Now they are big time money makers for smaller networks like USA and A&E. Good for us, bad for the networks. But why would they be turned down? Was it the clever writing, the good acting, the interesting concepts?

Brian Cherry at Big Hollywood has what I think is the bulk of the answer. He starts by looking at one show from the old days, when Network television ruled and the prime time show was king: Magnum PI. Tom Sellek made $50,000 per episode, which in today's economy is closer to $100,000 each. That's a lot of money to lay out for a star, but Magnum would capture a rating of 22.4. When he was up against shows like Trauma Center and Gimme A Break, Magnum ruled.

However, today is a different situation for networks. Their biggest shows average around a 10 share, because there's so much competition. With on-demand shows, pay-per-view, and hundreds of cable networks, network just gets buried in the alternatives. Three And A Half Men gets good ratings but nothing like what Magnum PI used to. That makes Charlie Sheen's $2 million per episode pretty expensive compared to Sellek's, even with inflation.

So they turn to "reality" shows, which cost less than a night time drama to produce and you can pay the cast a fraction of what a real star runs. Brian Cherry writes:

Dancing with the Stars, on average, scores a Nielson rating of 13.2 or higher. This thumps the best rating that Two and a Half Men can deliver, but it is a much cheaper show to produce. It was revealed that Kate Gosselin was receiving $100,000 per episode of DWTS that she appeared on. If this was true of the rest of the cast and hosts, the entire show combined is paid less per episode than Charlie Sheen. Seeing as every week a star, and their salary is eliminated from DWTS, the costs per episode go down. Also, as the number of contestants goes down and the drama goes up, and the ratings get higher. By the time the finale rolls around the show is costing less to produce, but raking in more money.

If you get into a contract dispute with one member of a reality show, dump them and replace them; its the zany situations, obnoxious personalities, and personal conflicts people tune in for, not the actual people involved. Its not exactly hard to find some annoying twerp to put a camera on and watch them cause trouble. In terms of earnings, the networks see "reality" shows as far better money than any sitcom or drama. So when the the producers of Burn Notice came to a network and pitched it, the network probably saw expense and little return, and told them to try somewhere else.

Yet there's a basic problem with that approach. The networks probably do rake in good money on shows like Survivor and America's Got Talent. Yet how many people want to buy DVDs of these shows? Survivor has been on for a decade. Three seasons is enough to get a successful show on to reruns, but nobody is putting it into syndication. Why would anyone want to watch old Survivor shows? Who'd want to buy a DVD of Jersey Shore? There's no rewatch value in these shows, so once they've shown, they're gone.

Sure, Reality TV is showing some old reruns, but only until they can create their own battery of replacement programming. In other words, the networks who rely on "reality" shows to bring in the money are actually hurting their earnings in the long run. Yes, it would take a lot of DVD sales and reruns of Three And A Half Men to make up the difference in cost between it and Dancing With The Stars, but shows as old as The Honeymooners are still being rerun and sold on DVD, making the original network more money.

This short-term money making strategy is not helping the networks do anything but survive, which is a pretty poor way to run a company. Reality shows will, sadly, probably always be with us. For that, MTV has a lot to answer for (thank you Real World). Yet in time the networks are going to have to find a different structure of programming to make it beyond subsistence, particularly as fewer and fewer people turn to old network channels for their news and entertainment.

*UPDATE: My brother noted that NCIS is a network show, so I had to do some rewriting for the article to make sense.