Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Wade and I'm Adam Novice. Spotlight uses a
special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter
where in the world they live. A man jumps across a broken bridge.
Under him, there is a small pool of brown water. On the other
side, there is a long rope hanging above the water. Will he be
able to climb the rope? Why a crowd cheers him on. He is
a contestant on the Japanese reality television program Sasuke. If he falls, the
man will lose and leave in shame. But if he continues on, he
could achieve something few people have before. Only three other people in the world
have completed every part of this competition. He will be a hero. Sasuke
is a popular reality television program around the world. There are thousands of reality
television programs. Over a billion people watch them every week. All of the
programs follow the same basic idea. They show real people in strange situations.
But why are reality television programs so popular? Why do people watch them?
Are they really real? Today's Spotlight is on reality television. There are many
different kinds of reality television programs. Some reality television programs follow wealthy women through
their strange lives. Some show people competing to cook the best food, try
to make a man and woman fall in love. Others show people in situations
that are not usually found in real life. Big Brother is a reality television
program from the Netherlands. In it, people watch what happens when a group
of strangers live together. The people have never met before, but for the
program, they live together for three months and they cannot leave the house.
Many other countries have their own version of the program Big Brother. The program
follows the same general rules in every place, but parts of it change to
make it better for one culture or another. But not all reality programs are
meaningful in every country. National Firewood Night was a program produced in Norway.
It was about cutting, storing, and drying wood. The program was twelve
hours long. Almost twenty percent of Norway's population watched the program. In other
countries, people may not be very interested in how to cut wood, but
Norway is a very cold place and many people burn wood to heat their homes.
The program was about the importance and meaning of making wood fires in Norway,
a country of woodcutters. Derek Miller is an author who lives in Norway.
In an interview with The New York Times, he said, the sense
of creating warmth, to share ideas, to share food, to share silence
is a very big part of what it is to be Norwegian. But across
countries and cultures, reality television is very popular and there are a lot of
different, diferent programs available. One reason for this is that reality television programs
are easy to make. A traditional television program tells a written story. Each
program requires writers, actors, set designers, and many other people to create
it. It takes many months to make. Making reality television is still a
creative process, but each program requires fewer people and less time to produce,
and many of these programs run for years without much change. Often they are
the same except for the people involved. Reality television also costs less money to
make than scripted or written television. Professional writers and actors are expensive, but
reality programs do not need either, and the people involved will often accept less
money than professionals who work in television. But the people on reality television are
often a big reason why people watch programs. These people are not acting out
apart, they are regular, normal people. They are just being themselves.
But reality programs often put people in strange situations. Sometimes these situations change the
way people act. To see how a person changes is very interesting, but
it also lets the people watching wonder how they would react. Watching reality programs
lets people imagine they are in them. One of the reasons reality programs are
so successful is because they are about real, normal life. But many people
do not believe that they tell the truth. They hear stories from people who
have competed in reality television. They say some of the results are not true,
or that the programs show people differently than they are. So how real
is reality television? Troy de Volde is an editor and producer for many reality
programs. In an interview with the television website The av Club, he explained
that there are two stories in every reality television program. The first is the
simple idea that the program is based on. A good example is a cooking
show where ten people compete to start their own business. The second is the
story of what happens to those people. It is the story of how they
relate to each other. For this second story, producers need a lot of
film footage. They film for many months. The producers then decide what will
be on television. This means that they can choose how to show what happened.
Devold says, like with any news story, it is about choosing what
film to use. You choose what to throw away. You also choose what
events to change. Timing of when things happen is a big thing in reality
TV. Over four months, you are trying to find six or eight scenes
that relate to each other. You make a program out of that. The
word real may not be the best way to describe reality television, but for
many people who watch reality programs, how truly real they are does not matter.
These programs are just good television. Lynette Rice is a reporter for the
magazine Entertainment Weekly. She says reality programs remain more popular than ever because no
one makes anything better. A lot of traditional television is just not as entertaining.
No one has created a program that makes me laugh harder than I do
at The Bachelor, so I will keep watching every time. Are there reality
television programs in your country? What programs do you like to watch? Tell
us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website or email
us at Radio at Radio English dot net and find us on Facebook at Facebook
dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was Dan Chrisman,
the producer was Bruce gulland the voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and
the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
This program is called reality television. You can also get our programs delivered
directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,