Reality TV: Wasted on the Young

Maybe youve decided that the best way to endure the current onslaught of cheesy, sleazy, nasty reality television is to say to yourself, in effect, The sunll come out tomorrow. There are those out there who think it wont.

Not everyone in the business believes [reality TV] is a fleeting fad, the New York Times Bill Carter wrote on July 17. For some programmers, reality shows representthe end of an old world and the start of a brave new oneAlmost all [of these shows] have been outright hits with young adult viewers, and especially big with viewers under 30And if young people are hooked on these programs, whatever else is said about them does not matter. [My emphasis.] More than ever, network television is steered by youth culture. Advertisers prefer young viewers, and networks will do anything to deliver them.

For CBS, anything meant the appalling July 12 installment of Big Brother 2, a reality show wherein a group of adults lives in a house where virtually their every move and utterance is monitored by 38 cameras and 62 microphones. In that episode, 26-year-old male contestant Justin Sebik vowed to punch [female contestant Autumn Daly] in the stomach and remarked of an unspecified woman, Im going to do her doggy-style and Im going to give her such a kidney [punch].

Thats nothing. In a sequence not shown in the episode but described on camera by BB2 host Julie Chen, during a drunken kitchen makeout session with contestant Krista Stegall, Sebik picked up a large knife, asked Stegall, Would you get mad if I killed you? and put the knife to her throat twice.

Sebik claimed it was all a joke (If theres anyone that can perceive that as an act of violence or as a threat, then youre an idiot). The producers disagreed and threw him off the show. That move seemed especially wise a few days later after the Times learned what the CBS talent scouts had overlooked: Sebik has been arrested five times in his hometown of Bayonne, N.J., twice for minor robberies and three times for simple assault.

In the end, CBS tried to have it both ways, presenting itself as responsible by ejecting this creep and benefiting from the increased ratings for this heavily promoted installment (What did one of these housemates do that forced producers to kick him out?Dont miss what everyone will be talking about).

Its not that Sebiks thuggery was the only offensive element of BB2. That July 12 episode, for example, included multiple unbleeped obscenities and profanities, none of them from Sebik.

Aired during the family hour, this is CBSs version of family values, I suppose. According to a CBS spokesman, the network believes BB2 is compelling and interesting, but Brian Lowry of the Los Angeles Times reported that at least some CBS employees privately say they are embarrassed by events on the show. Dont these people understand theyll never succeed in Mel Karmazins company with such a lousy, principled attitude?

NBC was late to jump on the reality bandwagon, but it wasnt, as it turned out, too late. The network has ordered thirteen more episodes apiece of Fear Factor and the Candid Camera knockoff Spy TV. USA Todays Robert Bianco declared that those programs, both of which premiered last month, were guilty of an absolute disregard for human dignity.

If you object to such fare, chances are youre just too old, says NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker, who told Lowry, Theres been a slight generational change in what the under-35 audience expects...We will always take a quality drama or a quality sitcom first but if we dont put on programs that are of interest to this [younger] audience, where are we going to be in five or ten years?

For its part, Fox will bring back last winters reality titillation-fest, Temptation Island, as well as debuting Love Cruise, which focuses on frisky young (of course) singles aboard ship.

Reality television doesnt have to be cruel or vulgar to draw viewers. On the second version of Survivor, the obnoxious contestants were off the island fairly early in the game; those left behaved like, well, adults. Reality TV is also Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, still one of the hottest shows on the air. Its also ESPN.

Theres plenty of questionable behavior on scripted series, but at least it involves fictional characters. Reality shows like Big Brother 2 cant mount that defense. It is television at its professional worst.