Is there a trend towards producing Reality Television in Australia? How does changing consumer habits impact on this change?
There are multiple ways of exploring the trends of content production on Australian Commercial television. Ratings, Economics and Consumer Behaviour all have an impact on what the kinds of programs production houses chose to fund, and what networks chose to air. There can be no doubt that profit is the key motivator for these kinds of decisions, but how strongly are the three categories linked?
Ratings
The available TV ratings provided by Oztam display the weekly top twenty rated programs aired on Australian television each week during the ratings period. With data since the start of 2007 on the weekly top twenty programs, we organised the programs into six categories: Reality programs, News and documentary, Drama programs, Sport and Sport talk, Lifestyle programs, and Variety programs which include game shows and live shows. Tallying the number of each genre in the Top 20 produced this graph:
The obvious dominant genres were the reality programs, new and documentary, and drama programs. Extracting the weaker genres, as well as news and documentary, which is lies outside the ‘entertainment’ category; we then produced the following graph:
Now we can see a direct comparison between the two major competitors for Australian commercial television entertainment ratings. An upward trend toward reality programs is not evident in this data, but what is clear is that both drama and reality are competing for the attention of Australian consumers. If this graph displayed the same information since 1990, we would see a significant jump in reality programming around 2001, as discussed previously, due to the popularity of Big Brother Australia. Unfortunately this data is unavailable, but information that we can draw from this graph can also give us information about the success of reality in comparison to drama, both offering significantly different business models. From these results we can infer that ratings play a role in dictating what is produced for Australian commercial television, however it is not the only factor that comes into consideration. Economics also determines the success of a program, and reality television certainly provides an ideal business model for producers.
Another Angle
A Brief Analysis
These Figures have been obtained from the Screen Australia Website and show the top 20 rating shows in each year, based upon the TARP (Target Audience Ratings Points) system and gives a pretty accurate idea of the most watched episode of shows throughout the year. Although ratings are known to fluctuate it is reasonable to assume that any show that lands in the top 20 has a reasonable amount of steady success - ergo the top 20 can be indicative of the types of programming and certainly the corresponding series that were successful during the times.
It is interesting to see in the 1998 Top 20 none of the shows really fit into the contemporary definition of 'Reality/Factual Entertainment'. 14/20 of the shows are of dramatized nature (both Television and Films on Television) the other six fall into documentary, Event Television (Academy Awards) and Sport, however none of these programs are in the vein of Big Brother or Survivor. Majority of the top 20 are also international (Mainly American) content meaning that in 1998 there was still a strong audience reliant on television as their first port of entertainment consumption
Fast-forward to 2009, only 3 of the 20 Top rated 'episodes' are drama. The Top 2 rating episodes are from the same show MasterChef Australia, 11 shows are relating to live sports, and the others are a mix of live variety and Reality programming (Such as The Biggest Loser). There is no need to bold the programs that are home grown as the entire top 20 is Australian made Content.
It is interesting to see in the 1998 Top 20 none of the shows really fit into the contemporary definition of 'Reality/Factual Entertainment'. 14/20 of the shows are of dramatized nature (both Television and Films on Television) the other six fall into documentary, Event Television (Academy Awards) and Sport, however none of these programs are in the vein of Big Brother or Survivor. Majority of the top 20 are also international (Mainly American) content meaning that in 1998 there was still a strong audience reliant on television as their first port of entertainment consumption
Fast-forward to 2009, only 3 of the 20 Top rated 'episodes' are drama. The Top 2 rating episodes are from the same show MasterChef Australia, 11 shows are relating to live sports, and the others are a mix of live variety and Reality programming (Such as The Biggest Loser). There is no need to bold the programs that are home grown as the entire top 20 is Australian made Content.
What does it mean?
There are three conclusions we can draw from the two sets of data
These assumptions are in relation to the evidence provided by the TARP and total viewership scores, but are also restricted in the sense that they assume Television is the be all and end al of media consumption, which we know is not the case. However from these conclusions our research becomes further layered as each conclusion provides several implications on their own, which on the whole relate mostly to the changing consumer consumption habits of 'for Television' content.
- Australians are watching Television less
- Australians are watching less drama
- Australians are watching less foreign content
These assumptions are in relation to the evidence provided by the TARP and total viewership scores, but are also restricted in the sense that they assume Television is the be all and end al of media consumption, which we know is not the case. However from these conclusions our research becomes further layered as each conclusion provides several implications on their own, which on the whole relate mostly to the changing consumer consumption habits of 'for Television' content.
Australian Content
The increase in popularity and sheer domination of Australian content in Australian Television can simply be explained by a few technological advents - The Internet and Television Recording (DVR or TiVo). The Internet has provided consumers with alternate methods of watching their favourite drama shows, whenever they feel like it. Choice is a significant factor in the analysing the changing landscape of Commercial Television. If consumers didn't need to watch American serialised drama at 7:30 at Tuesday, why did they have to fit their lives around a television program? They could catch up rather easily and non-consequentially online, often with a better experience of a advertisement-free viewing. This creates two problems
Our Hypothesis is this - that Australian content, (particularly sport or reality programming) is so popular in the here and now because it provides an immediacy that is exclusive to the television for the period that the content can be deemed 'new'. Australian content is naturally the only control that Australian networks over the choice spoken about above. Majority of the shows listed have a certain 'result' imminent in their build. Thus naturally viewers essentially have 'no choice' other than network dictated times to find out the result that will instantly become disinteresting once it is revealed. Thus Australian content provides the viewers with something that the internet and 'alternate' methods of consumption can not - and that is the immediacy of the unfolding storyline. Since reality hinges on the 'results', surprise, and is almost serial in nature viewers have to watch episodes of Reality Television when the networks dictate if they wish to fulfill their immediacy requirements that new technology has instilled in consumer values in the media landscape today.
It is not unreasonable to assume that foreign content will rate lesser to Australian content. As the internet gets faster and technology becomes more intuitive, it will only be too easy for fans to stream foreign content live upon first foreign broadcast, or simply download a version minutes after the show airs on its local broadcasters. While Fast-Tracking is certainly a step in the right direction it is almost impossible to provide consumers with the immediacy they demand in terms of foreign content.
- As Television (relating to the physical activity of sitting in front of and watching a television) becomes 'less popular' as a media outlet advertising for networks drops
- If money can't be recouped from advertising that is skipped over by DVR or other means then it would need to come from other means. Networks would pay less for episodes, meaning productions may end up failing meeting a budget.
Our Hypothesis is this - that Australian content, (particularly sport or reality programming) is so popular in the here and now because it provides an immediacy that is exclusive to the television for the period that the content can be deemed 'new'. Australian content is naturally the only control that Australian networks over the choice spoken about above. Majority of the shows listed have a certain 'result' imminent in their build. Thus naturally viewers essentially have 'no choice' other than network dictated times to find out the result that will instantly become disinteresting once it is revealed. Thus Australian content provides the viewers with something that the internet and 'alternate' methods of consumption can not - and that is the immediacy of the unfolding storyline. Since reality hinges on the 'results', surprise, and is almost serial in nature viewers have to watch episodes of Reality Television when the networks dictate if they wish to fulfill their immediacy requirements that new technology has instilled in consumer values in the media landscape today.
It is not unreasonable to assume that foreign content will rate lesser to Australian content. As the internet gets faster and technology becomes more intuitive, it will only be too easy for fans to stream foreign content live upon first foreign broadcast, or simply download a version minutes after the show airs on its local broadcasters. While Fast-Tracking is certainly a step in the right direction it is almost impossible to provide consumers with the immediacy they demand in terms of foreign content.
Syndication
Syndication, which is usually a revenue stream that many producers relied on as a way to turn a production into profit becomes very problematic when in relation to reality television shows. Syndication refers to the selling of the rights to screen a show outside of the network system (for example Glee screens on FOX in America, but also cable channel Oxygen) to other channels. Unfortunately the value of syndication in certain kinds of Reality Programming is low. "Robertson says syndicators and stations will just have to become better at managing change. "Maybe first-run becomes more active," he says. "If reality is making more sense, we'll be very aggressive in that space. Maybe some of this stuff will repeat. Look at Fear Factor. They're all opportunities." Fear Factor is expected to perform well in syndication this fall in late-night time slots, but it is the sole exception to the rule that reality is not repeatable."(8) Unlike sitcoms, or other popular shows in syndication like The Simpsons, certain kinds of reality programs will find themselves hard to secure syndication deals, however because of the cyclically repeatable nature of competition formats (such as 20 seasons of survivor) often it would be more profitable to just produce another season anyway.
(8)Schmuckler, Eric, “Network and advertising execs deal with the new programming paradigm” Brandweek vol 45, iss 22, May 2004, (Business Source Premier)
(8)Schmuckler, Eric, “Network and advertising execs deal with the new programming paradigm” Brandweek vol 45, iss 22, May 2004, (Business Source Premier)
