VH1's 2001 show Bands on the Run was a notable early hybrid, in that the show featured four unsigned bands touring and making music as a professional activity, but also pitted the bands against one another in game show fashion to see which band could make the most money.
Elimination/Game shows
Another type of reality TV is so-called "reality game shows", in which participants are filmed competing to win a prize, usually while living together in an enclosed environment. Participants are removed until only one person or team remains, who/which is then declared the winner. Usually this is done by eliminating participants one at a time, in balloon debate style, through either disapproval voting or by voting for the most popular choice to win; voting is done by either the viewing audience or by the show's own participants.
Probably the purest example of a reality game show is the globally-syndicated Big Brother, in which cast members live together in the same house, with participants removed at regular intervals: no skills are involved in winning the show other than being appealing to others and handling the dynamics of a group well. The American version, though, involved mental and physical competitions for rewards to help get forward in the game.
There remains controversy over whether talent-search shows such as the Idol series, America's Got Talent, American Inventor, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Skating with Celebrities, and Celebrity Duets are truly reality television, or just newer incarnations of shows such as Star Search. There is no element of plot on these shows; on the other hand, there is a good deal of interaction shown between contestants and judges, and the shows follow the traditional reality-game-show conventions of removing one or more contestants per episode and having the public vote on who gets removed.
Modern game shows like Weakest Link, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, The Bee-Bop-a-dee, Dog Eat Dog, Greed, Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100, and Fear Factor also lie in a gray area: like traditional game shows, the action usually takes place in enclosed TV studio over a short period of time; however, they have higher production values, more dramatic background music, and higher stakes (done either through putting contestants into physical danger or high cash prizes) than traditional shows. In addition, there is more interaction between contestants and hosts, and in some cases (The Weakest Link, Dog Eat Dog, Fear Factor, Greed, 1 vs. 100, and in a very limited manner, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire) reality-style contestant competition and/or elimination as well. These factors, as well as these shows' rise in global popularity at the same time as the arrival of the reality craze, lead many people to group them under the reality TV umbrella.
There are various hybrids, like the worldwide-syndicated Star Academy, which combines the Big Brother and Pop Idol formats, The Biggest Loser, which combines competition with the self-improvement format, and American Inventor, which uses the Pop Idol format for products instead of people. Some shows, such as Making the Band and Project Greenlight, devote the first part of the season to selecting a winner, and the second part to showing that person or group of people working at what it was they were selected to do.
There are some popular subsets of the competition-based format:
Dating-based competition
Dating-based competition shows follow a contestant choosing the hand of a group of suitors. Over the course of either a single episode or an entire season, suitors are eliminated until only the contestant and the final suitor remains. The Bachelor is the best-known member of this category. Individual-episode examples include Next, Room Raiders,Date My Mom, and My Own.
Job search
In this category, the competition revolves around a skill that contestants were pre-screened for. Competitors perform a variety of tasks based around that skill, and are judged, and then kept or removed, by a single expert or a panel of experts. The show is invariably presented as a job search of some kind, in which the prize for the winner includes a contract to perform that kind of work. Examples include The Apprentice (which judges business skills), America's Next Top Model (for modeling), American Idol (for singers), Hell's Kitchen (for chefs), Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, and Project Runway (for clothing design).
Sports
These programs create a sporting competition among participants who are athletes attempting to establish their name in that sport. The Club, in 2002, was one of the first shows to immerse sport with reality TV, based around a fabricated club competing against real clubs in the sport of Australian rules football; the audience helped select which players played each week by voting for their favourites. The Big Break was a reality show in which aspiring golf players competed against one another and were eliminated. The Contender, a boxing show, unfortunately became the first American reality show in which a contestant committed suicide after being eliminated from the show. In The Ultimate Fighter participants has voluntarily withdrawn or expressed the desire to withdraw from the show due to competitive pressure.
In sports shows, sometimes just getting on the show can get a contestant the job. The owner of UFC declared that the final match of the first season of Ultimate Fighter was so good, both contestants were offered a contract. Many of the losers from WWE's Tough Enough and Diva Search shows / segments have wound up being picked up by the company.
Self-improvement/makeover
Some reality television shows cover a person or group of people improving some part of their lives. The British show Changing Rooms, which began in 1996 (later remade in the U.S. as Trading Spaces) was the first such show. Sometimes the same group of people are covered over an entire season (as in The Swan and Celebrity Fit Club), but usually there is a new target for improvement in each episode. Despite differences in the content, the format is usually the same: first the show introduces the subject or subjects in their natural environment, and shows us the less-than-ideal conditions they are currently in. Then the subject(s) meet with a group of experts, who give the subject(s) instructions on how to improve things; they offer aid and encouragement along the way. Finally, the subject(s) are placed back in their environment and they, along with their friends and family and the experts, appraise the changes that have occurred. Examples of self-improvement or makeover shows include, besides the previously-mentioned ones, The Biggest Loser (which covers weight loss), Extreme Makeover (entire physical appearance), Queer Eye For The Straight Guy (style and grooming), Supernanny (child-rearing), and Made (attaining difficult goals), Beauty and the Geek (8 academically challenged beauties and 8 socially awkward geeks pair up to help each other overcome their weaknesses).
Similarly, Pimp My Ride, Overhaulin', and Trick My Truck show vehicles being rebuilt.
As with game shows, a gray area exists between such reality TV shows and more conventional formats. The show This Old House, which began in 1979, for example, shows people renovating a house; media critic Jeff Jarvis has speculated that it is "the original reality TV show." [3]
Dating shows
Some shows, such as Blind Date, show people going out on dates with no element of competition. Antecedents may be found in The Dating Game from the 1960s.
Talk shows
Though the traditional format of a "talk show" is that of a host interviewing a featured guest or discussing a chosen topic with a guest or panel of guests, the advent of Trash TV shows has often made people group the entire category in with reality television. Programs like Ricki Lake, The Jerry Springer Show and others generally recruit(ed) everyday guests by advertising a potential topic that producers were working on for a future program. Topics are frequently outrageous and are chosen in the interest of creating on screen drama, tension or outrageous behaviour. Though not explicitly reality television by traditional standards, this (allegedly) real depiction of someone's life, even if only in a brief interview format, is frequently considered akin to broader-scale reality TV programming.
Hidden cameras
Another type of reality programming features hidden cameras rolling when random passersby encounter a staged situation. Candid Camera, which first aired on television in 1948, pioneered the format. Modern variants of this type of production include Just Kidding!, Punk'd and Trigger Happy TV. The series Scare Tactics is another recent program in which the goal is to frighten contestants rather than just befuddle or amuse them.
Hoaxes
In hoax reality shows, the entire show is a prank played on one or more of the cast members, who think they are appearing in a legitimate reality show; the rest of the cast are actors who are in on the joke. Like hidden camera shows, these shows are about pulling pranks on people, although in these shows the hoax is more elaborate (lasting an entire season), the particpants here know they are appearing in a TV show (it is the true nature of the show that is kept secret from them), and the cameras are out in the open. Also, the point of such shows often is to parody the conventions of the reality TV genre. The first such show was 2003's The Joe Schmo Show; other examples are My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (modelled after The Apprentice), My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Space Cadets (which convinced the hoax targets that they were being flown into space) and Invasion Iowa (in which a town was convinced that William Shatner was filming a movie there).
Other shows, though not entirely hoax shows, have offered misleading information to some cast members in order to add a wrinkle to the competition. Examples include Boy Meets Boy and Joe Millionaire.
