Television schedules have been dominated by reality shows, but, as Big Brother starts its latest run, Maggie Brown looks at the growing list of failures and examines whether we are falling out of love with the genre
When reality television scores, the rewards are enormous. A successful format will be relatively cheap in proportion to the number of hours of broadcasting it can fill, it will pull in hordes of young, advertiser-friendly viewers and the press coverage will be immense. The latest newcomer to the genre, Hell's Kitchen, is produced for around the same money as a costume drama, but fills bags of airtime and dominated last week's tabloids. Similarly, Big Brother 5 will doubtless swamp the media for the summer months, regardless of its ratings
From
MediaGuardian
