What are the various types of reality shows?
Reality television comes in several genres. The world tends to group reality television into several different sub-genres. Game shows are certainly a form of reality television, as real contestants come on and try to play the game, and either win or lose in real time in front of you. Talk shows are a form of reality television, where either real people or celebrities come on to discuss topics or tell a story in some way in front of a live studio audience in real time. That's reality, because when you sit down in front of a live studio audience, what you're about to say may be planned, but not fully scripted, and the questions may not be fully known to you ahead of time. The story that you tell is never told the same way twice. It's reality. It's a true story of what happened that day. Another kind of reality television is big contest reality. We also call this genre elimination shows, where a group of people start and one person wins. Those cover things like Survivor, The Apprentice, and also The Bachelor and other shows, where the prize may only be a guy, but it's still the same thing. Twenty people started and one person won. Those are what we call elimination shows, or contest shows. Another kind is the more pure documentary type of show. The Real World is one of those. There is no prize for The Real World, it's just a question of whether people can get along. Some reality shows are living sitcoms. I would say The Osbournes is like that. It's the true story of this family just trying to deal with each other. There's no prize at the end of it. It's cut for comedy, which I find interesting. The shows I do are also cut for comedy, like The Surreal Life - there's no prize at the end of Surreal Life, but it's about whether these wacky celebrities can get along and live together as roommates. Basically, those are the major genres in reality television: talk, game, contest, and documentary style.
