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Which Reality shows suck up most of your time?

Strap yourself in. Some Reality TV shows want 50 nights or more of your time, but do viewers have the stamina?

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What are TV’s biggest Reality commitments?

MasterChef Australia and The Block are the most demanding Reality TV shows on air requiring 50 nights or more from their audience.

Both screened for 13 weeks in 2021 with MasterChef tipping the scales at a whopping 61 episodes (plus 2 Masterclasses). That’s great for the sales department, but not so great for time-poor viewers.

Some shows also make great demands in terms of the hours every night, with the most recent I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here some screening episodes at close to 2 hours.

So do viewers have the stamina?

In some cases yes. Both The Block and MasterChef are two of TV’s longest running Reality juggernauts, at 17 and 13 seasons, respectively.

But if you’re looking for some of the least demanding of your time then The Voice: Generations (3 episodes) & Australian Ninja Warrior (9) have you covered. Foxtel Reality shows are also usually around 10 episodes each.

Here are the episode runs for most recent completed seasons of Free to Air Reality shows:

Rank Title Episodes Weeks Avg. length* Total mins*
1 MasterChef Australia 61 13 75 4575
2 The Block 50 13 80 4000
3 Married at First Sight 32 9 90 2880
4 Big Brother 31 10 75 2325
5 Love Island 27 7 60 1620
6 Australian Survivor 24 9 80 1920
7 The Amazing Race Australia 24 9 75 1800
8 I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here 20 5 100 2000
9 The Bachelor 16 6 70 1120
10 SAS Australia 14 4 75 1050
11 The Voice 13 5 90 1170
12 Celebrity MasterChef 13 7 80 1040
13 Farmer Wants a Wife 13 3# 80 1040
14 Celebrity Apprentice 12 4 80 960
15 Beauty & the Geek 12 4 75 900
16 The Bachelorette 12 6 70 840
17  Big Brother VIP 11 4 80 880
18  The Masked Singer 11 4 75 825
19  Australian Ninja Warrior 9 3 90 810
20  The Voice: Generations 3 1 90 270

* estimated
# Reunion aired later

Brook Hall, Seven Network Scheduler told TV Tonight time is a big consideration with the network looking to outputing shorter seasons.

“From 2015 -2018 we had House Rules and MKR which together had 100 episodes. When you’re rating, and people are watching, I can see why you’d do that. So I can understand why MasterChef or The Block are 50 episodes or more.
One thing I can say about MKR (2022), we’ve cut it into a third. When we took over The Voice we cut it in half. We’re keeping that philosophy because it puts you in a strong position,” he said.

“If you have 10 brands of 10 to 15 episodes, if one or two fall over you’re okay.

“One thing that we learned is we became too reliant on basically two shows. James (Warburton, CEO) wants lots of strong weapons, not one or two where you leave yourself vulnerable.”

37 Responses

  1. You should have left out the last line David .
    The question I pose is why do they go for so long and why are they dragged out ,I haven’t watched a full reality series for eons and I never will it’s always an episode here and there.

  2. BBC3 has just started showing Masterchef Australia here in the UK and the variable length nature of Aussie reality shows is a bit of a nightmare when shows are sold to linear channels abroad.

    Perhaps if the broadcasting authorities actually enforced schedules to be correct rather than turning a blind eye to shows running 20 minutes late the mammoth 90-120 minute episodes becoming the norm wouldn’t have happened.

    As for scheduling – has to be a happy medium shortly. Seven’s new approach of throwing short runs of every changing franchises feels as desperate as milking a show for 3-4 months. Also a show like Big Brother would benefit from more, but shorter, episodes, with an eviction cycle played out Iver 2 x 1 hr episodes rathe than one 90 minute edition.

    1. Interesting, I actually wondered when these shows are sold overseas do they provide them with an edited down version, surely other overseas networks wouldn’t want a show that runs 1 hour 35 minutes (8.30-9.05pm for example like Survivor most nights), I had thought maybe they just provided them with a one hour version so they can show it cleanly in their schedule, or I guess if streaming it doesn’t matter as much,

  5. Back in those days I used to watch MKR, The biggest loser and some of the shows from this list in full but now most of the reality shows I watch we just simply skip the boring parts and just watch the interesting parts of the show because 90 mins is just too long and its been like that in recent years.
    The only reality show I watched in full now is the Voice on Ch7.

  6. It feels like we have been watching Married at First Sight and Australian Survivor for 6 months now, thanks to the constant commercials advertising of their “Starts on Jan 31” slogans…. that began a while ago……

    1. I’ve often thought that coming soon etc should be limited to a month in advance.
      But self regulation means they can do this for 6 months, over saturating the viewer & causing fatigue before it airs!

  7. Just in case any programmers are reading this…….I would watch more reality TV if the programs stopped overrunning in time. Keep it to an hour per episode, not a minute longer. Episodes running longer than an hour per night is too much of an investment for me and I won’t commit. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this sentiment.

  8. Looking at the list I’ve watched more shows on 10 than the other channels over the years, but now I don’t watch any on 10. MasterChef is the king of way too much content. It’s a shame as it’s great feel good show which I want to watch, but so many long episodes each week, I just can’t commit anymore. Australian Survivor is very well produced, but once again too many episodes each week and they are way too long also. The Bachelor/ Bachelorette, are just too predictable.

    These days I watch SAS Australia, Farmer Wants a Wife and Beauty and the Geek. With the exception perhaps of SAS Australia, the other two don’t require much of a commitment which suits me fine.

  9. Some shows even the promos are too long. I usually lose interest if the show is more than 90 minutes. If they promise me that its essential that I watch I know its overhyped and not worth my time.

  13. I am finding Australian Survivor a real slog to get through. I’ve been a massive Survivor fan since day 1, but eff me they really need to edit the Australian version so much better esp with it being on 3 nights a week. There are at least 3 segments most nights we can do with out. It is so bad I’m at the stage of giving up.

  17. I’m A Celeb was a firm fave for many years but I love the Big Brother reboot & should be great viewing this year. All the others do not interest me at all. Not a fan of the “my hearts beating out of my chest” or “it’s down to the wire/pointy end” or the whistling man or just the nonsense talking to the camera. Good grief.

  18. I used to watch MKR house rules masterchef BB ect but over the years i just cant commit anymore to 4-5 nights a week 90+ minutes.

    The only show i watch now is Survivor 3 nights is my absolutely max i can bare with. I get the rest of my reality fix from Hayu.

    I cant stand when a show goes past 9pm its ridiculous!! By stretching out the eps for longer viewers it actually is counteractive so many people are turning FTA off now. If some of these shows were 2-3 nights at 730-840 I actually may have tuned in.

    1. Two hours is my limit, so that I can watch both episodes of The Rookie and Show Trial this week, but will split them up. I manage to find a few hours of stuff to watch every evening on FTA without watching any of these competition shows. Except for Pointless, I have been recording S24 eps to put on while I’m doing housework or exercising.

  23. Does anyone remember when shows like Big Brother were on six nights a week for three months straight. I don’t think we have the attention span to watch shows like that anymore! I think the introduction of streaming services has just meant we won’t watch anything anymore.

    1. I do, but you may recall the original Big Brother weekly episodes were just 30 minutes long, if I remember correctly. The Sunday show was an hour or so. The week night shows were great, short sharp and to the point. Hows things have changed…

      1. The first couple seasons were actually ‘reality TV’ in the true sense of the word. You could log into the internet feeds 24 hours a day and the late night show had pretty much uncensored content live. Compare it to the pre-packaged highly edited Big Brother now that was recorded months earlier and it’s not the same at all.

  25. After 10 destroyed the format of The Amazing Race last year, MasterChef is the only show listed here I watch, but I do have a process for watching it. Skip the first couple episodes, I don’t need to see the cut down of those who don’t make it to the starting line. Always watch it recorded to fast forward through recaps/up next, celebrity guest/chef gushing, contestant back-stories, commercials, slow burn episodes as the number of contestants decreases but episode length remains the same. By doing all this you can knock out a 90 min episode in around half the time. I also skip all Masterclass episodes, they’re not essential viewing.

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