REALITY BYTES

It all began innocently enough, with a logo and an idea for a cable TV music channel called MTV. It launched in August of 1981 and had a profound impact on the music industry. Whatever musical group or artist that could afford to produce a music video, would gain a ton of exposure and make a lot of money.

MTV has changed. Let’s face it, everything changes. Sometimes things change for the better, while other times changes happen in board meetings, when stockholders wanting more dividends.

Today, it’s difficult to separate MTV’s message, from their medium. Owned by Viacom, MTV has sister channels owned by the same company. VH1, MTV2, Spike TV, Nichelodeon and a few other cable networks. MTV is Viacom and Viacom is bigger than any trust we put into the medium.

The main thrust of MTV these days, does not have a lot in common with the actual music, but more to do with it’s reality based shows. Their first pioneering effort into reality based TV was, of course; “The Real World”, that launched in May of 1992 to millions of MTV fans and created an immediate crossover wave; gaining a few million other “Real World” fans, that only boosted MTV’s ratings into another galaxy.

The plot was simple. Throw a bunch of young adults into a house together and see what transpires.

This is a recap of “Real World” #1.

This reality show became a benchmark event in the TV industry, that exploded into every sector of the TV industry. It was not long at all, before other reality based projects began to surface all over the cable dial. If you had a good idea for a reality based project, then networks were wide open for any and all ideas.

As far as MTV was concerned, they saw their pet project, “Real World” in terms of spin offs and a whole new way of catering to an every hungry crowd that was bored with the standard network fare. MTV now had the power of reality TV, that could change the very idea of what was ethically possible and morally acceptable to it’s viewers. MTV could now change the social fabric of our society and stretch the boundaries; and it did just that. Unfortunately, with many reality shows now, the lines become very blurred. Show ratings can be gauged by the drama that is created.

MTV’s newest installment of “A Shot At Love”. A contestant on the show, decided to take a cheaper shot at another contestants chin, a couple of weeks ago.

On many of the reality shows, we get to see violence rear it’s ugly head and the viewer response seems to be mixed. In the end, the ratings do prevail. Over the past few years, many of the reality shows we watch, do have their violent outbursts that seems to overshadow what the particular context of the show is really supposed to be about.

Tomorrow will conclude with part two of this “Reality Bytes” blog.