Smoke and mirrors: When Reality promos are all about the professionals, not the talent.
Reality show promos are forgetting who the show is supposed to be about.
- Published by David Knox
- on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Go6dLNGs4
Reality shows appear to be stepping up the confected outrage by their very experienced professionals, and forgetting about their own contestants.
On TBL Families this Sunday it’s “Trainers at War” TEN tells us.
Shannan Ponton is seen in promos throwing accusations towards Commando and Michelle Bridges, both of whom are in a relationship.
“I’m over this!” he declares. “Smoke and mirrors!”
It does so at a time when the show is dipping below the 500,000 mark.
Seven has similarly featured an X Factor promo recently in which its judges are so busy arguing there’s no time to feature the young singers hoping for a showbiz career.
But are viewers really supposed to believe these moments are genuine?
Since UnREAL has aired, we getting wiser to the tricks and manipulation in the genre.
Professionals are hired to give expert advice, but also to attract publicity. If that means turning it on for the cameras, then it will probably help with their own contract renewal. And yes, even an article like this feeds into that game…
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a little chest-thumping for the sake of ratings, other than the fact nobody is willing to admit that’s all it really is.
And that the shows are supposed to be about the contestants, not the hired help.
Smoke and mirrors, indeed….
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- Tagged with TBL Families, The X Factor, UnREAL
11 Responses
This show is seriously in trouble. I have given up, all the game play, the bitching, it actually makes MKR look tame.
The confrontation is so obviously staged they should be nominating the trainers for acting awards.
But that implies that the acting is good
“And that the shows are supposed to be about the contestants”
Well if the contestants would get their stuff together and show up with nice emotionally-exploitable backstories ready to go, the producers wouldn’t need to resort to this…
I think the current promos for TBL families demeans the brand and the trainers. It struck me as being off target completely. If there is a dwindling audience for this show; such gossip and mud raking among the trainers will not do anything for the success of the show. Reeks of desperation. I’m not sure I agree that it is the same as the X Factor squabbling, as the entire format and rundown for each show pits a mentor/judge against another and they have the same as/if not more air time than the contestants. Just look at those grandiose introductions. But as others have pointed out over the months with The Voice; it becomes about the celebrities rather than the new talent. Also, TBL promos lift out of context to find a hook for the promo, so maybe it is derived from a contestant’s comment first. We’ll see.
I am of the belief that Michelle’s 10kg weight gain at the start was a fabrication to get a rea tion from her and to exaggerate the effects of the family’s week of eating.she hardly looked 2kg heavier.
Shenanigans!
They claimed she put on 10kgs!?!?!?! That’s unpossible! (Ralph Wiggum reference, not bad spelling:-) )
I’m sticking with this season of TBL but it’s far from the best (not a great cast; one episode per week too short to have a narrative I care about). I know this ‘Trainers At War’ is completely constructed, but let’s face it, it is a genius way of addressing the white elephant in the room that the gossip rags have kept flogging. Shannon, Michelle and Steve have all worked together for so long now I’ll bet they’ll absolutely cringing as these episodes air though.
Since Unreal? Since The Real World in 1992.
Everybody knows what it is. But contestants continue to sign waivers, appear for peanuts and play to the cameras just to be in front of them. Networks don’t have to employ actors and writers. People will watch it live leaving other stuff sitting on their DVRs.
It’s rated PG, entertains people keeping them hanging around in the between the ad breaks and promos, which are its sole reason for existing. Nobody has ever seriously argued it has any higher purpose.
How many shows skew younger and get 500k these days?
Nah The Real World doesn’t show the audience how the show is made. UnREAL did to Reality what Frontline did to current affairs.
The reality promos are nearly always extremely badly targeted as well, when watching something completely unrelated from another genre on a different channel but same network and desperately plugging a singing/dating/cooking/dancing renovation show is about as sensible as touting dog food during a cat lovers convention, advertising beauty products during the Bathurst race or interrupting a wine tasting with a loud shouty beer ad. Its amatueruish, transparently infantile and counter-productive.