OK, please no more reality shows involving celebrities and their families.

[Skidmore]

Really, give us a break. I just saw that there will be a new offering of the Judd family and the work they need to do in therapy. I know these people have problems like we all do, but I'm personally sick of the focus on people with wealth and on the need in today's culture to intrude into every aspect of someone's live or have the details forced on the public. Enough. Between the Kardasians, Tori Spelling, the Braxtons, and every other scripted bit of our-lives-are-so-important, we are in overload here.

Before someone points out that you can turn them off, I don't watch these shows but they appear to be the only programming that is increasing.

[Snoutport]

1. but what if glenn beck comes out with a show like palin's?he's gonna need a job

[bluestateguy]

2. I'd like to see a reality show depicting a regular working family with no eccentricities

But I'm sure some pissant programming executive will say that it can't be done.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. What do you mean by 'no eccentricities'? Would you pull it if

they got to interesting? Most everyone in television, pishers included, would probably mention the very first reality series, back when it was called 'cinema verite', An American Family. They started out very typical, but by the end, not so much. Because the surface people present is not always accurate.
So I wonder what counts as eccentric, or as a family, in this case. And what would you do if your 'regular family' blossomed into something you do not see as 'regular'? Would you replaced them for not being 'regular' and again, what is the standard for 'regular'? No eccentricities?

[MineralMan]

3. That's what the remote is for, and the guide channel on your TV.

I've never seen any of those programs.

[NYC_SKP]

4. I agree emphatically.

And the admonition to "just not watch them" doesn't help one bit.

We're witness to a terrible decline and a sad waste of resources.

Cable and broadcast programming has been getting worse and worse.

So many possible interesting shows that could teach and enlighten and we get that crap.

Dumb down, America!

x(

[Telly Savalas]

9. Yes, I too long for classic intellectually stimulating television like Gomer Pyle

Since television's inception, the vast majority of its content has been dreck. With the proliferation of cable channels, there's a lot more people making a quick buck with a reality show but there's also a lot of people who've made shows in the last decade that far surpass anything done before our culture was supposedly "dumbed down": Daily Show, Colbert Report, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Weeds, Lost, Eastbound and Down, Firefly, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Damages, Arrested Development, Mad Men, the Walking Dead, etc.

And the distribution channels for such media is evolving. If you get Netflix for $7 a month, you get access to a shitload of brilliant documentaries.

Why whine about the 90% that sucks when you can be enjoying the 10% of awesomeness? There's plenty of it out there if you bother to look.

[LiberalAndProud]

5. When you rely on "reality" you don't need writers.

I'm convinced 95% of the reason for the ascendancy of the format is an effort to reduce the clout of the Writers Union.

The "reality" format made it easy to get rid of the tv machine, though. Because there isn't much real about it, is there?

[Horse with no Name]

12. I've thought that too

And the Screen Actors Guild....the list goes on and on.

[LiberalAndProud]

13. Kim Kardashian is a member of SAG.

You still need "stars" so SAG is probably less threatened. Celebrity does pay for itself in our culture.

[IcyPeas]

6. you forgot to mention one more.

s-a-r-a-h p-a-l-i-n

[jmowreader]

8. Expect even more of these trainwreck shows

It's cheaper to put a camera in Charlie Sheen's house and let him stumble around unscripted in his trademark drunken stupor, than it is to hire a full TV crew and a writer.

[KT2000]

10. The Judds have to stop this

They have been going on tv shows for years lamenting their various problems and it is getting pathetic. Wynona alone has occupied several of Larry King's shows talking about a succession of problems.

Shows like this have created a new social dynamic that has people spilling their guts to people they hardly know about their family dysfunctions. Not good.

[Recursion]

11. If you watch them, they will come

If it has a market, the shows will continue.

[Iggo]

14. You had me at '...no more reality shows...'

:loveya: