Reality TV/ Cathy Come Home

Hill (2005) explains that the broad and common term ‘reality TV’ is simply defined as being a range of popular factual programming. However when analysing the genre more closely, it is easily noticeable that the term ‘reality TV’ is much more complex than this simple definition.

“In the early stages of the genre, reality TV was associated with on-scene footage of law and order or emergency services” (pp.41). As television has progressed over the years, the genre has altered due to the changing nature of which television thrives off. The ‘cannibalisation’, as Hill puts it, of TV genres upon each other has redefined reality programmes to also define themselves as entertainment.  

One example of Hill’s involves the merging of both documentary and soap genres to create a hybrid genre of “docu-soaps” (pp.42). Another example of early hybridisation as noted by Hill was the pairing of documentary and gameshow, to result in such popular television series like Survivor (2000) which spanned an impressive 31 seasons (IMDb).

Given the successful combination of documentary and entertainment, the television industry traditionally defined reality TV as either ‘factual entertainment’ or ‘popular factual’, two terms which Hill notes are today very much umbrella terms for a range of differently formatted television series.

As a result Hill states that there is no one set definition for reality TV, rather the definition only becomes broader as the “television industry has redefined its generic structure for documentary and contemporary factual programming” (pp.55).

Biressi (2005) notes that the pioneering documentary movements, such as the Griersonian project,t has had influential impact on modern day reality TV. As Biressi points out, a common trait of this early documentary style includes “political concern, differently informed by socio-cultural context, to depict the lives of ‘ordinary’ people” (pp.35), or more simply put, “the depiction of the everyday” (pp.36).

 The documentary styled drama Cathy Come Home (1966) directed by Ken Loach is an early product of this movement and is echoed still in contemporary reality TV programmes that air today. Aired in the 60’s Cathy Come Home, although not entirely real but rather made to depict the real, was the start of a movement which we would then see carried through into shows such as 16 and Pregnant (USA), and Benefit Street (UK). It is shows like these ones which adopted the loose scripts, and averagely filmed footage styles which shed light on socio-cultural issues depicted in the form of ‘everyday’ life.

 

The volume of reality TV has increased enormously from the days of Cathy Come Home, and the definition of ‘reality television’ is constantly morphing to cater as entertainment to viewers, but it is obvious that remnants of original reality-based series remain present in today’s version of reality TV and one thing is for certain we are, more or less, all watching some form of reality TV. 

References

Biressi, A., Nunn, N. (2005). Real Lives, documentary approaches. In Reality TV: realism and revelation. (pp. 35-58) London: Wallflower.

Hill, A. (2005). The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.

IMDb Website (n.d). Survivor: Episode List retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239195/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2 on 27^th October 2015.

Loach, K. (Director) (1969) Cathy Come Home.