How reality TV bubble has burst after 25 years thanks to tired formats with tumbling ratings & rise of streaming giants
THE year 2000 wasn’t just the start of a new millennium, it also marked the birth of reality TV.
But the genre — once considered compulsive viewing — now seems to be dying a long, slow death.
Back then, Britain was introduced to a trio of new shows in the form of Shipwrecked, Castaway and Big Brother.
They paved the way for other monsters that moved beyond surveying human behaviour, such as The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Love Island.
But as reality TV prepares to mark its 25th birthday, the bubble has burst and titans that once ruled the ratings are floundering.
Despite desperate attempts by execs to reignite the passion by reviving old formats, it is no longer the appointment telly it once was.
The Sun’s Ally Ross said: “All reality shows have a shelf life and with most of them — like Mr Right, The Bachelor, Back To Reality with Jade Goody and Rick Waller — that shelf life is not much longer than a yoghurt.
“The good ones, like Celebrity Big Brother and The Apprentice, have about ten solidly entertaining years in them before they go into terminal long-term decline.
“That’s because tastes change, viewers get bored seeing the same thing and the market expands to include streaming services, so it becomes almost impossible for them to maintain that level of success.”
Last month, Celebrity Big Brother, which had previously been axed by Channel 4 and Channel 5, was revived by ITV1.
But the final drew a comparatively pitiful audience of 2million — a fraction of the 6.7million who tuned into the show at its peak in 2010.
And the millennium’s two other fledglings haven’t fared much better. Shipwrecked was scrapped after a brief reboot on E4 in 2019, and Castaway tried and failed to deliver a sequel in 2007.
But it’s not just the oldies that have faltered, with reality TV talent shows that followed in their wake also now on the ropes.
ITV and then the BBC tried to capture a UK audience for global hit Survivor, but the latest effort for the Beeb dwindled last year.
A second series is yet to be confirmed.
Love Island attracted just one million viewers for its February finale, despite bosses bringing back some of the series’ biggest names for an All Stars season.
Love Island had attracted just one million viewers for its February finale, despite bosses bringing back some of the series’ biggest names for an All Stars season.
Both CBB and Love Island did add millions more viewers on catch-up, however, with CBB’s launch consolidating at 3.8m.
The spotlight is now on Britain’s Got Talent — a long runner that first launched in 2007, but is now attracting half the viewers it once did.
An average of over 13million watched Susan Boyle, 62, and Diversity battle it out in 2009. Just over 5million crowned comic Viggo Venn, 35, last year.
Tellingly, new formats now tend to first air on sub-channels or streamers. E4 this week launched The Underdog: Josh Must Win to fewer than 500,000 viewers.
Even TV bigwigs Simon Cowell, 64, and Holly Willoughby, 43, are looking to Netflix for their new offerings — his search for a new boyband and her I’m A Celebrity-inspired challenge show, Bear Hunt.
It is true that, for a decade at least, reality ruled the roost.
Cowell once bragged: “That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of — that the shows we’ve made have gone on to do what we intended them to do, which is be more than a TV show.”
In 2001, talent format Popstars launched the career of “Nasty” Nigel Lythgoe on ITV, whilst stars of BBC’s version Fame Academy, such as Lemar, are still in work today.
But the crowning glory came in 2012 when Bafta recognised reality with its own category at their TV awards — with even the likes of Made In Chelsea going on to be honoured and, later, Love Island.
But last week’s award nominations told a very different tale.
E4’s Married At First Sight was the only offering that can be considered a traditional reality show.
The others noted were Banged Up — a social experiment on Channel 4 that saw celebrities experience life in jail — and Squid Game: The Challenge, Netflix’s game show spin-off of the hit Korean dystopian drama. So why have we fallen out of love with reality TV?
The clue lies in the nominations’ fourth shout-out — Davina McCall’s middle-aged dating show, My Mum, Your Dad.
It won plaudits for unashamedly embracing human relationships as genuine folk like grieving widower Roger Hawes fell for Janey Smith.
Davina stirred up emotion without engineering arguments.
In the same way, runaway success story The Traitors also relied on an old-fashioned, murder mystery trope rather than cynical attempts to create drama.
That’s where the green shoots lie. Normal people, without a script, doing something of interest.
Because of that, the Traitors became appointment TV, with 6.9million choosing to watch live, just like the olden days.
Host Claudia Winkleman reckons its appeal is down to human nature.
She said: “The game is compelling . . . I don’t know about you, but I’ve been told all my life, trust your gut.
“When you meet somebody and you fall in love, or you think you’ve fallen in love, or you get asked to do a job, trust your gut.
“But it turns out you can’t. Your gut can tell you absolutely nothing, you have no idea what you’re doing and other people are lying to us.”
Aside from going back to basics, there are two men who seem to hold the key to reigniting our love affair with reality — Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.
Ally agrees: “The exception is probably I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! But that endures only because of the presenters.
“Stick anyone other than Ant and Dec in charge and it would have vanished within five years.”