What happens if the stories that emerge during a reality show shoot aren't interesting?

What happens if the stories that emerge during a reality show shoot aren't interesting?

Mark Cronin (Founder & Producer) gives expert video advice on: Does reality TV use scripts?; What happens if the stories that emerge during a reality show shoot aren't interesting? and more...

If you're a reality television show producer and you're watching your show get recorded, and it's not interesting, it's probably your fault. You either cast poorly - you cast uninteresting people - or you produced poorly - meaning that you didn't set up challenges or conflict or activities that make compelling television. You made some mistakes along the way, possibly; maybe you're halfway through the season and the most interesting people in the whole reality show have been eliminated, and you're looking at a boring show. It's your fault. What to do about it? When things are boring, it's time to have a big meeting, and talk about what we can do to get things going. An example of this can be, "Let's have a birthday party! Send in a birthday cake, and everybody's got to buy the birthday boy a present, and boom! Now we've got a problem." You have to come up with something that causes problems, that starts things up and gets things flying. "Let's make somebody the boss for the day." - That's always good. Putting somebody in charge is always a good method of getting things heated up on a reality television show.