Eight-hundred-twenty-five thousand viewers tuned in to watch the premiere of this year’s Big Brother series. However, this was less than half of last year’s viewership. The series once generated British icons like Alison Hammond and Nikki Grahame. Now, its inability to produce individuals with star quality is more obvious than ever.
This makes us question, is reality TV facing its a downfall?
While the 2023 Big Brother had its ups and downs, the series remained a successful fresh start for the return of the hit show after five years. I recall several nights of Second Year, huddled up to my laptop screen, voting for my favourite contestant and anxiously anticipating who would get kicked out of the house. However, after a lacklustre viewing of the first episode this year, I don’t even keep up with the series on TikTok, and it’s not just Big Brother I’ve had this experience with recently.
There are several causes for this: a busier lifestyle, my taste in the genre of shows diversifying, and a general decline in watching broadcast TV. Nevertheless, there is one reason which sticks out to me the most. With these formulaic shows, which usually have a cash prize or the promise of partnerships, contestants who partake enter with career-driven intentions. Therefore, their personas appear fictional and calculative, which, as a viewer, comes across as consumeristic and jarring.
If contestants entered shows without the pre-knowledge of potential fame and chronology of the events, the viewing experience would be one laced with authenticity. Generally, the earlier seasons of shows such as Love Island are just better in terms of the twists, humour and individuals who are unapologetically themselves, allowing us to align with and connect to them. However, most shows have been laid out the same for centuries, meaning that viewers and contestants could recite the show’s chronological pathway before it has even aired.
While it’s refreshing to see that many shows have gone in the right direction by providing mental health support for contestants during and after, this is completely undermined by the overly orchestrated situations and cringeworthy editing that is uncomfortable to watch, creating false narratives to probe drama and strong opinions from the public.
As a young adult, it’s excruciating to watch the manipulation of people of a similar age, a recent example being the Pop Star Academy documentary, which narrates the experience of young girls being pitted against each other on a survival show they didn’t know they would be on. The show narrates their training experience through to the girls suddenly going public on the show and watching their friends be eliminated as videos are shared to the whole group, without consent, in which they are forced to rank each other’s abilities.
Ultimately, reality TV shows continue to have the same formulas. As we become more aware of their ethical issues and artificiality, and as producers continue to manipulate contestants, audiences struggle to maintain any interest. Existing formulas just prove to be outdated and uncomfortable.
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