Reality TV Revisited

All right, I promise this will be my last post about “reality” television. At least until the next thing on a so-called reality show that strikes me as having some relevance to this blog. But something came up in last night’s season finale that struck me as intriguing from a business standpoint, which is why I’m bothering all of you with it today.

A few weeks back I mentioned the Food Network’s homegrown reality/contest show, “The Next Food Network Star” in this space (see the post “Reality Television” back in June), which I believe is a brilliant adaptation of the reality show/competition format, in that not only does the Network get a highly engrossing contest show, they are also using this competition to screen, audition and test-market potential new on-air personalities for their network. To my knowledge, it’s the only example to date of a television network using one of its shows as a means of creating new shows. Spin-off shows have been common on television for decades (“Happy Days” helped to launch at least three or four spin-offs, depending on how you want to count them), but this is using an existing show as a development tool, generating new programming and new on-air talent.

Now comes the tricky part. In this year’s competition (Food Network is in it’s third year of the show), one of the two final contestants was forced out at the last second, ostensibly because he fudged a few of the details on his resume. Nothing that bad, really; certainly nothing that would interfere with having your own television show. But, nevertheless, the sort of mild fudging that could easily get you fired in the corporate world, or turned down for the job, if it was detected early enough. Food Network compensated by bringing back the last runner-up; the last contestant eliminated from the show, and proceeding with the popular/fan vote that concludes the competition (and hopefully brings in greater audience participation and viewership). When the dust settled, it turned out that, in fact, the replacement finalist, the woman who had been eliminated in the last week of the competition, was declared the winner of the popular vote, and therefore of the contest.

I think this brings up a few questions. First off, is a fan vote really a good idea? It works for say, the “American Idol” singing competition, since the same fans voting are the ones you will be counting on to buy the winner’s records, but the fan favorite here (in reality show “behind the scenes” moments and snippets of on-camera time) may not actually make the best on-air personality for a television network. Second, if the network executives didn’t really want this contestant (remember, THEY voted her off the show), will they be able to make a successful show around her? Will they even try? Third, if the Network thinks the other finalist (the one THEY actually picked) is a better choice, can they offer her a program as well as the “official” winner? Or would that undermine future competitions?

And finally, most incredibly of all, why on Earth didn’t the Food Network CHECK THE REFERENCES of the contestants? Even a brief background check would have informed them of the issues their finalist was going to have, and they could have done something about the situation earlier. Unless you think the whole thing was a set-up; a prefabricated plot twist intended to add interest to the show and manipulate the audience…

In which case, all is well, and none of the other questions really exist…