Reality TV Is Dying
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-grim-new-reality-for-once-popular-tv-genre-2015-1
American Idol judges (L-R) Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. at Fox's "American Idol XIV" Red Carpet Event on December 9, 2014 in Los Angeles
Los Angeles (AFP) - Falling ratings, canceled shows and lurid scandals: 2014 was a trying year for reality television in the United States, as American audiences wearied of producers chasing success by recycling the same old formats.
The question is, will 2015 be any better? Some experts say real life-based TV shows are facing a grim new reality.
For more than a decade, reality television shows bulldozed their way across the US ratings landscape unchecked, attracting bumper audiences year after year.
But the big-hitters of the genre such as "Survivor" and "American Idol" have shown serious signs of fatigue after years of dominance.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-grim-new-reality-for-once-popular-tv-genre-2015-1#ixzz3O2cqnYET
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that clydefrand could have liked, at least in the beginning: The Learning Channel. These days, they might as well re-brand themselves as "RTV" or "Reality" TV, because they show nothing of any educational value.
Per Wikipedia's page on them:
The channel was founded in 1972 by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and NASA as the Appalachian Community Service Network,(3)(4) and was an informative and instructional network focused on providing real education through the medium of television; it was distributed at no cost by NASA satellite.
The Learning Channel: "a place for learning minds"
ACSN was privatized in 1980, and its name was changed to "The Learning Channel" in November of that year; the name was subsequently shortened to "TLC."
5) (NASA immediately launched NASA TV as the ACSN's internal replacement). The channel mostly featured documentary content pertaining to nature, science, history, current events, medicine, technology, cooking, home improvement, and other information-based topics. These are often agreed to have been more focused, more technical, and of a more academic nature than the content that was being broadcast at the time on its rival, The Discovery Channel. The channel was geared toward an inquisitive and narrow audience during this time, and had modest ratings except for Captain's Log with Captain Mark Gray, a boating safety series which aired on TLC from 1987 to 1990 and achieved between a 4.5 to 6 share in the ratings. Captain's Log was also the highest compensated series in the history of TLC, with over 30 times the compensation of any other series on TLC at that time and was allowed to sign yearly rather than quarterly contracts.Although it didn't show up until the channel started to change for the worse, one of my absolute favorite shows on TLS was called simply "The Operation." The premise was that the documentary crew followed patients needing some kind of medical operation and the doctors would talk the audience through the procedures. I don't know much about medicine, but it was one of the most fascinating shows I'd ever seen, before or since!
Of course, PBS was, and still is, a good substitute for what TLC used to be. And as far as vulgarity goes, I learned more "bad words" off of British comedy shows aired on PBS latenight and weekends than I learned in school
Thankfully, TCM still means "Turner Classic Movies" and embraces that title, instead of rebranding it. Thank all that is good and right in the world for Robert Osborne!
I remember watching that on PBS! And then they did a shorter show for the early version of The Discovery Channel, I think. Didn't think it was as good, because it's difficult to cover centuries in half an hour (unless your a Doctor!) 
Now if someone would just come up with something new. It seems like almost everything on prime time is either a reality show or yet another detective show. TNT's new "Dallas" was great because it wasn't just another stupid formulaic murder show, but it's not being renewed this time. 
"She's a COPCAWLER!!"
I would rather watch that than any of the endless SVU or CSI crap.
I'll let the smilies do it for me!
Networks are lazy and cheap.
They do not want to hire writers and real actors, so they just turn everything into a contest 
baking
dancing
singing
"faux- surviving"
child raising
and more
and yet they (former independent, now eaten up by bigger entities) always seem flummoxed over the fact that THEY are not winning awards or accolades..
Just last week, the "weather" channel thought we needed Two Fat Guys In the Woods more than having some weather folks show us the massive flooding/rain-caused landslides that were happening right then..
And they "offer" us schlock like the Dynasty nut cases, and the guy who travels worldwide eating weird stuff , and pimping toddlers in evening wear so Momma can go to walmart more..and the unending march of idiotic sitcoms that fail a few weeks after they start
The few really special (formerly) networks have been ruined.
and WHY is 20-20 wasting our time investigating crimes that were solved decades ago?
and Good Ole NBC , who probably has enough old footage to cobble together "new" Dateline/ID until the next millennium..
I'll stick with HBO/Showtime
Oh, wait, there's some other kind of "reality" television??? And it's worse than the television news and news shows???
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I'm still there, every week. 
I love Face Off & Wizard Wars, too.
Every show there is some ingredient I've never heard of. And then you have to come up with a way to cook it, with specific other stuff, in just a few minutes. Wow. Must be interesting to be a judge for a cooking show. "Hmmm, I wonder what this is going to taste like?"
The ones where there is some talent involved are okay. You have to find what interests you. I like fashion & magic, but singing, not so much. I had a 24 hour bug one day & had a non-stop day of Shipping Wars. Now that is some mindless stuff! 
That coincided with VCRs & cable being spread in the late 70s early 80s .
The more choices the cheaper things get just like life with over 7 billion humans 
Bar Rescue, Hotel Impossible, Restaurant Impossible. Because they take a failing bar, restaurant, hotel and get experts in to teach them how to run a business properly. Most of these people are rude to customers and don't have a clue about training their staff or cleaning or fixing simple drinks and dishes.
The experts are helping people (who are often stubborn and refuse to change although they are losing their asses) instead of making them compete artificially and being cruel to them, like the cooking competition shows.
Some of them do become successful in the hospitality business, but some of them have no idea how to be nice to customers and accommodate their needs. Some of them don't understand that if you are rude to customers, and don't answer questions, they will not come back and you will go broke.
And then they get into shoving matches with him!!
I absolutely despise reality shows and don't watch any of them. Most of them cater to the lowest common denominator and have created fake "stars" who are no more than talentless, greedy and mediocre people.
Duck Dynasty, The Bachelor, The Housewives of...., etc.
Cringe worthy garbage.
