Since Sarah Palin was everyone's favorite guest-star (after Mark Wahlberg) on Saturday Night Live last weekend, she might have some job prospects waiting for after she loses her VP bid.
"Any television person who sees the numbers when she appears on anything would say Sarah Palin would be great," said veteran morning-show producer Steve Friedman, citing the double-digit ratings gains her appearances on "Saturday Night Live" and "CBS Evening News" generated. "The passion she has on each side, love and hate, makes television people say, 'Wow, imagine the viewership.' "
Of course, no one is making any firm offers yet, because there's still that snowball chance in hell that the Republicans will be able to steal this election, but let's just say that after months of watching washed-up celebrities duke it out on Viacom-owned channels, we'd love to see a I Heart Hockey Moms reality contest of some sort. First prize? Adoption by Sarah Palin and a renaming to Zamboni.
It's easy to jump the shark when you're always in the water!
Michael Phelps, Olympic swimmer turned American hero turned language software spokesman, has at long last been asked to consider the career equivalent of outstaying one's welcome as a house guest: reality television. According to Life & Style magazine, Phelps was approached by Ashton Kutcher, owner of the Katalyst Films production company, about the project, which would presumably follow the swimmer as he eats, adjusts to fame, eats and signs autographs.
Phelps has yet to agree to anything, so for now you'll have to keep getting your laughs at the expense of a goofy, disproportionate guy from your kid brother.
Can you believe that Survivor has already been on for 16 seasons? Jeff Probst can't, especially since it's taken him nearly that long to win an Emmy for his work as host. But if the ratings year's award ceremonies featuring the reality-television stars are any indication, viewer interest in watching contestants eat bugs and create alliances is waning.
Though Survivor is still #1 in its time slot on CBS Thursdays, viewership has decreased over 50%, and with the economy being what it is, there is little chance that advertisers will be willing to invest the big money they used to.
"After eight years, you’ve got to wonder what’s left to come up with,” said David C. Joyce, a media equity analyst at Miller Tabak & Company who follows CBS."
Is the decline in Survivor interest a sign of the upcoming hard times ahead? Will the new Depression really be heralded in by the dearth of reality television as the ubiquitous canary in a coalmine?
The pop culture end of days is upon us! Repent, and check out three other recent examples of penny-pinching in pop, after the jump:
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The Lifetime channel is making it very clear that it's sick and tired of being a punchline B-list comediennes use when talking about what they do when they get dumped or are on their periods.
First the network sneakily snatched away Bravo's trendy reality program Project Runway. Now it's delving even deeper into the hip fashion game with a new original reality series, Blush: The Search for the Next Great Makeup Artist. Because culture just doesn't celebrate the useless but moneymaking fashion industry enough!
Yet despite its similarities to shows like Runway and Shear Genius, Blush also promises to be quite different—it's going to be much, much worse. That's because it's basically a goddamn unabashed infomercial.
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Ha ha ha! The Red Roof Inn hotel chain, whose market research has shown that Red Roof customers are "big fans" of Nascar racing, is launching a new country music-based marketing campaign that tacitly admits exactly what many have suspected for years: that Red Roofs are low budget, simple and unbelievably boring, much like modern country music. Now, people on the run from the law lured into Red Roof Inns by "Red Roof Loves Country" print ads and billboards can then stay one step ahead of the cops with prerecorded wake up calls from country stars Phil Vassar and Little Big Town.
Of course, every thinking person knows the Red Roof Inn doesn't love country so much as it loves people who love country's money, something other companies have apparently also realized as of late. (Surprise! Folk in cowboy boots have cash, too, and that they can be suckered by good old fashioned hucksterism just as easily as Fiddy Cent fans.) Besides Red Roof's campaign, Coty has recently released a fragrance named after Tim McGraw and NBC has premiered a reality TV competition called Nashville Star.
Yahoo capitalism! Leave no demographic unexploited!
Sure, these days MTV is a heartless, godless whisper of what it once was, but don't say it's forgotten how to gorilla-pimp talented children.
This Monday, Engine Room, MTV's newest long-form commercial, will premiere and completely reinvent the exploiting-artists genre. Populated with ambitious computer whizzes, Engine Room takes four teams divided by nationality (!!!!!!!!!!) and pits them against each other in a digital design-off to see who can create the best artwork. "But how does this race baiting dogfight and the art it will produce make enormous whales even richer?" you're asking, well aware of MTV's MO. Where the cash comes in to play is in the computer hardware, all of which will be provided by Hewlett-Packard.
PCs are losing handily to Apples with the grownup-babies-who-buy-things-to-look-cool demographic – a huge demographic, by the way – and everyone except for Steve Jobs is looking for ways to appear "with it." So what better way to look cool and boost sales while exerting a piddling amount of creative effort than with a reality program on MTV? A program that promises a real live guest appearance by electronic vegan Moby? It's not like people are completely disgusted with that station's garbage yet. And wouldn't everyone love to see that smirk knocked off The Mac Guy's face? Everyone wins!
Best of luck to the Engine Room editors, the men and women whose job it will be to make viewers forget they're watching a bunch of sweating, anxious nerds make YouTube videos.
We all know violent sexpot New York has no respect for herself – really, how could she? – but had you any idea how little she cares for the feelings of others?
In the newest episode of televised pockmark New York Goes to Hollywood, Pollard attempts to research Japanese culture for an upcoming commercial role. Of course, she goes about this not by heading to the library for The Book of Five Rings or scouring Wikipedia, but by asking every Asian person she sees if they can explain Japan.
It's a good year to have a fake job. First, all those Bigfoot researchers are getting some airtime. Then Jon Stewart gets fingered as the most trusted man in news. And now "Outstanding Reality Host" is a category at this year's Emmys. Taking this nonsense a step further, the nominees won't just have their names read off a teleprompter — the five contestants nominees will group-host the primetime ceremony. But as we all know in reality show hosting, one day you're in, the next day, you're out. So who's going to show up for the opening of an envelope and hear her own name called?
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Though it's losing Project Runway to Lifetime, Bravo is still home to the most robust, and formulaic, set of reality shows out there. Top Chef is a runaway hit with legions of fans; Make Me A Supermodel, though featuring the annoying Tyson Beckford and equally plain Nikki Taylor, was a drama-filled vamp-fest; Step It Up & Dance, the So You Think You Can Dance knock off, was decent (we're told); the new season of Shear Genius promises more haircare drama; and Top Design is coming back with new producers.
The format for all these shows goes like this: Line up a trio of industry experts to act as judges (there must be at least one Simon Cowell character); employ an attractive, personable, and mostly vanilla host(s); then roll out casting calls to New York, Los Angeles, and anywhere in between where wannabe actors can mingle with genuine talent in a house where cameras roll 24/7, all in an effort to win a modest cash prize and an industry gig where you won't become too famous to overshadow the next season's cast.
So what are Bravo execs going to do now that nearly every niche — yes, even real estate — have been covered? CONTINUED »
The host.
In science, the word evokes the image of a hapless life form, attached in perpetuity to a parasite, allowing the thing to grow large and healthy without measurable benefit to itself.
In religion, the word is used to describe the glorious armies of heaven, galloping across the skies to lift up humanity to a blessed and happier place.
In reality TV, the word means a little bit of both.
But not all hosts are made the same. Just as the ancient Greeks developed several schools of philosophy, the modern era has turned out many different theories of hosting — be it the "Friendly Ghost Host" method evinced by Ryan Seacrest or the more dynamic "Hosting as Performance Art" practiced by Hulk Hogan on "American Gladiators."
-Patrick Day and Deborah Netburn, "Friendly ghost or Pope?: Varieties of Reality TV Hosts," Los Angeles Times
[Photo]
TV IS DEAD Yeah, time to start reading. [USAT]
Every week, a bunch of “real” people say really stupid things on reality TV. We dispatch Intern Whitney to find the ten stupidest.
10. "Prom in New Jersey is basically everyone goes tanning and steals booze from their parents." — Kevin, Project Runway
Have you heard?? Bravo "stars" Dale Levitski (that prematurely balding fellow who lost Top Chef 3) and Jack Mackenroth (that sort-of hot guy who gets eliminated on next week's Project Runway) have confirmed to Bravo that they're not-so-secretly dating!
Says Jack: "It's very baby steps. I really like him a lot. And geography is a bit of an issue, but we'll see where it goes. I like him a lot. I assume he likes me a lot. Unless he's lying." (Awkward!)
Did you guys hear the one about the reality show that exploited a contestant with a mild form of autism, to boost ratings promote acceptance and tolerance in an industry where (occasionally) putting black people on the cover of magazines is still seen as experimental?
Meet 21-year-old Heather Kuzmich, the "socially awkward" stunner and Aspergers sufferer, who "has trouble making eye contact," is "sometimes the target of her roommates' jokes" and got kicked off last week's episode of America's Next Top Model for having below average map-reading skills.
• Lance Armstrong grossly makes out with random blond chick to alleviate suspicion that he's dating an Olsen.
• Even more irrefutable proof that Britney Spears is all kinds of knocked up.
• Celebrities pump their own gas, just like us! Only difference is, they can actually afford premium gasoline despite the soaring oil prices.
• Naomi Campbell continues to forget that she is, in fact, an aging supermodel—and lacks the requisite interpersonal skills required of even "honorary" diplomats.
• Wait, so this week's episode of The Real World ended with a racist catfight? Yeah, this is us, pretending to be surprised.
• Hey, ladies! Wayne Newton wants you to know he's heterosexual. Just, you know, FYI.
If reality TV is a poor man’s scripted television, then game shows are a poor man’s reality TV. And with no writers to speak of, NBC is going to put out some poor television.
This January, NBC will add three more hours of reality TV to its lineup. The network will shelve Chuck and replace it with American Gladiators. (Full disclosure: One half of the Jossip team thinks American Gladiators is the greatest testament to physical prowess of American athletes since the 1984 Olympics. The other half thinks American Gladiators is greatest testament to American stupidity since "duck and cover.")
Quiz show 1 vs. 100, The Biggest Loser, Couples Edition, and Celebrity Apprentice will all start in January. NBC's reality chief Craig Plestis claims, "We're kicking off the New Year with a bang.”
Well, if he didn’t believe that, who would?
God, MTV.
First we hear that The Hills is fake, and now Tila Tequila is straight. What’s next, the Real World isn’t real?
A source close to the Shot At Love production claims Tila is not bi-sexual at all. In fact, she’s got a BF, and is just using her sexuality to springboard her career [Ed: since when is looking slutty on a social networking site a career?]. Get out!
Reports Page Six:
Tila has and has had a boyfriend for over a year, and she's not really bi. She's made out with some girls in her past, as all girls have, but she is not bi at all … This is a massive scam . . . That's why they are not continuing with the show [for a second season], because she won't dump him.
We know, we know. This looks bad. But if the source at Page Six thinks all girls have made out with other girls, Tila Tequila might still be a bit bi-curious.
From Queerty: "MTV-owned Logo announced they’ll air a series called Transamerican Love Story, which stars trans actress, Calpernia Addams."
With luck, this will go far more smoothly than the similarly premised Britain show, There’s Something About Miriam, where producers neglected to, as our gay younger brother put it, "tell contestants of Miriam’s 'something.'"
So it’s the eleventh day of the strike. After reporting on the new reality TV programming and predicting the rest of the seasons of the shows affected by the strike, we’re all out of angles. So Conan’s in reruns, blah blah blah.
Fortunately, the good people at Pepperdine University conducted a survey about the strike. Thanks for making the story fresh again! CONTINUED »
Have you heard? South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have exec-produced a new series for Comedy Central called Kenny vs. Spencer. The result, as far as we can tell, is a comedy-slash-reality show dedicated to fostering unnecessary competition between friends as part of an effort to score cheap laughs/ratings. (Just like they do on The Hills!)
Editorial Director
