The sudden and surprising success of CBS’s new reality-based show “Survivor” has created a stampede to develop a slate of Peeping Tom TV clones and Los Angeles-based production companies, talent agencies and even post-production firms are riding the trend to the bank.
A host of cable production companies that have long struggled to crack the network market are now finding open doors for their reality-based shows. The frenzy for new concepts is so intense that some producers are actually turning down ideas for new shows pitched by the networks, instead of the other way around.
Eric Schotz, president of Sherman Oaks-based LMNO Productions, said one network executive approached him about doing a show chronicling the exploits of a professional thief commissioned to break into the Getty Center museum in Brentwood and steal an art object without letting security guards know about the stunt.
“We passed,” he said.
But LMNO has plenty of work. The company is readying “The Krypton Factor,” a new game show for Fox, slated to debut later this summer. It’s also developing “Boot Camp,” which will feature 20 contestants put through a military-style hell week, for Fox.
Other producers not known for the new wave of reality TV are rapidly jumping into the genre. North Hollywood-based Greystone Television Inc., which has produced such shows as “Terror of the Deep” and “Angels” for CBS and “Killer in the Water” for UPN, is known mainly as a documentary maker, but now it’s talking to networks extensively about reality TV shows.
“We go with the flow,” said Greystone President Donna Lusitana. “We are known for our documentaries, but we are trying to branch out to catch the new reality fever.”
Scramble for reality
The rush to replicate the success of “Survivor” and ABC’s hit game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is also affecting the post-production arena. Dan Snow, operations manager of Media City Sound, an audio post-production company, said business is up 25 percent thanks to new game shows and reality shows.
“It is filtering down to everyone,” he said. “Everybody is jumping in.”
Meanwhile, talent agents are scouring L.A. and the rest of the world in search of reality concepts they can pitch to the networks.
“‘Survivor’ has been a huge boon, but this is something that has been going on since ‘Millionaire,'” said Hans Schiff, an agent in the London office of the William Morris Agency. “It keeps getting hotter and hotter. American audiences have found a different slate of shows. When it comes to prime time, it doesn’t all have to be comedy or drama.”
Schiff is a member of a four-man team at William Morris along with Ben Silverman, Greg Lipstone and Mark Itkin that has been hunting around Europe for reality-based shows to import to the U.S. market. The Morris agency put the deal together for “Millionaire,” which is based on a British show. “Survivor” is based on a Swedish show.
There is little wonder the networks are hunting for the next “Survivor.” For the week ended June 24, the CBS show was No. 1 in the ratings, just ahead of an episode of “Millionaire.”
“‘Survivor’ has created a buzz,” said Pam McNeely, a media buyer for ad agency Dailey & Associates. “It’s created a summer of guilty pleasure. It’s the dirty little secret. You don’t want to admit that you watch it.”
CBS is already developing “Survivor 2” for next year and will switch locales from the remote Indian Ocean island of Pulau Tiga to the Australian Outback. It returns after the CBS broadcast of the Super Bowl in January.
ABC, which has ridden “Millionaire” to dizzying success, is currently airing “Making the Band,” following the attempt to create a made-for-TV rock group. ABC also just signed a deal for “The Runner,” a nonfiction take-off on “The Fugitive,” which would be produced by actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. It would turn contestants into fugitives forced to avoid capture.
Even prim and proper PBS has its reality-based programming: “The 1900 House” features an English family trying to survive for three months in a house built at the turn of the last century. Its sequel is “The Frontier House,” a kind of reality-based “Little House on the Prairie.”
“There is a desire to see this kind of programming,” said Les Moonves, president of CBS Television, during a media briefing on “Big Brother.” “I have no problem with it. There are 500 channels out there. If you don’t like it, change the channel.”
Peacock missing the boat
NBC, which has been slow to develop a winning game show or reality-based saga like “Survivor,” is under pressure to develop its own nonfiction show, but a spokesman said nothing will be ready until next summer.
While these programs and others like them are a boon for local producers, they do have drawbacks. The shows are highly profitable because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars less to produce than star-laden sitcoms or one-hour dramas. But that’s not very good news for producers.
“It cuts into the business,” said Snow of Media City Sound. “The budgets are a lot less. Most of these shows are shot on videotape and they use a lot of natural sound.”
