I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want…
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… and it ain’t reality TV shows!
A recent NZ Herald poll presented a very interesting result when it came to preferred programme-viewing,
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See: NZ Herald
It’s intriguing to note that Reality TV shows scored a surprisingly low 4% !
Though possibly not a very accurate poll, it’s still surprising that Reality TV did not fare better with NZ Herald readers.
Could it be that television executives have badly misjudged their viewing audiences and fewer and fewer people are bothering with the heavily formatted, cliched reality shows?
The soft-core porn of “The G.C.” was bad enough. Now TV3 are planning to ‘share’ “The Ridges” with us, the viewing public? I have little idea why “The Ridges” are famous. Aside from pandering to a small(ish) male segment of the population with unwholesome mother/daughter fantasies – it’s a mystery to this blogger what these two women have achieved that merits an entire TV series devoted to them?
‘Reality’ shows like “The G.C.” and “The Ridges” are a far cry from the bold documentary-making of Bryan Bruce’s “Inside New Zealand: Child Poverty“.
See: Inside Child Poverty (the dvd)
See: Inside Child Poverty (Facebook page)
If the Herald poll is correct, it demonstrates one simple, hard fact; viewers are crying out for in-depth news and documentary programmes. They want to know what’s happening in their own country, and the world around them.
At 28% support, television moguls should know where the real money is; intelligent, thought-provoking docos.
Certainly not the boudoirs of a couple of hapless blondes. (No offence intended to Ms Ridge and her daughter.)
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= fs =
And yet we continually get reality shows (well, I don’t as I’m in the 9% that doesn’t watch TV) so we have to ask the question: If this commercial means of running TV is so responsive to what the people then why are they missing the biggest segment of the market?
The cynic in me tells me it’s because TPTB don’t want the people informed. Considering NACTs attacks on education this does seem to be born out.
“TPTB”?
The Powers That Be
I think you’ll find that people that can’t read (a newspaper or anything informative) get their information from reality TV, hence skewing the survey somewhat. Those who could read the questions are several orders of magnitude ‘smarter’ than those who find the Ridges entertaining.
Mind you, the Ridges have managed to convince some TV executives to part with some cash…
That might explain things, Robert…
Ah. *clicks*
That’s good news, Frank… In all these years, I have met only one person who admitted to watching the egregiously awful ‘Survivor’ (this was some years ago, when it was the only reality show), and I’ve met no one who likes all the rest….
Aside from anything else, reality shows are much cheaper to make than say, drama,.,,
Deb
I sometimes wonder, Debs, if people secretly watch these “Survivor” shows in secret, via On Demand TV, and when their spouse comes into the room they quickly flick it off and pull up a new screen, and pretend they’ve been watching pornography instead…
As Dr Brian Edwards said once about the raunchiness of magazines like Cleo and Cosmopolitan, – people buy them and slip them inside a Playboy or Penthouse before walking out of the magazine shop…
Hey, I suppose that’s possible! F’r instance, there are very few people who know I watch Corrie St (well, there are rather more of them now!)
Someone must buy Cleo! But who?