Un-reality TV shows

[Brian Elfert]

Alaska: The Last Frontier is a TV show on Discovery. The narrator in the intro talks like this people are living off the land and have to depending on hunting and gardening for survival.

The reality is the family is very well off. One of the cast members is the father of the singer Jewel and Jewel has been on the show before. The family lives only about 11 miles from a grocery store and so on. They have electricity. The show constantly shows them driving old equipment and vehicles. The reality is that they own a number of fairly new vehicles they use for trips off their property. One of the cast members is shown building things from old junk, but the shop he is working is a brand new building with very nice tools. The same cast member has a skid steer that appears to be brand new.

The cast members had to do their own filming for the first three months of the pandemic and the show producers showed a lot of things we probably never would have seen otherwise. The nice vehicles were shown a number of times. They filmed the interiors of several of the houses/cabins and they had shiny new appliances and so on. It is clear they buy groceries in addition to hunting, fishing, and gardening.

One of the cast members built a new cabin for his family. He spent many thousands of dollars on having building materials shipped in. Some stuff was even delivered by helicopter.

The show usually has Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes before each of those holidays. It is obvious they are staged because there isn't any snow on the ground and they often eat outdoors at least for Thanksgiving. It would be too cold in Alaska to eat outdoors for either of those holidays.

[Bruce King]

Yeah it’s all for entertainment and money for the producers. I find some good shows on Netflix that have several seasons adding up to 40 plus hours per show, awesome stuff. Any tv shows we watch are usually recorded so we can skip the commercials.

[Jim Becker]

A now deceased friend of mine was on that or a similar show...he was a PA (physicians assistant) in real life, but was in Alaska for a bit doing volunteer work in a community up there. He ended up being the vet resource for the duration, too.

[Brian Elfert]

Yeah it’s all for entertainment and money for the producers. I find some good shows on Netflix that have several seasons adding up to 40 plus hours per show, awesome stuff. Any tv shows we watch are usually recorded so we can skip the commercials.

I never watch anything “live”. I record everything so I can skip commercials.

[Bryan Lisowski]

Reality shows are cheap to produce and these people are getting paid and probably get some vehicles or other things as product placement. In the end, it is just entertainment.

[Doug Dawson]

So-called “reality tv” is a way to avoid paying writers (and for that matter on-air talent) for their work. Nobody should be fooled that this isn’t totally scripted and a setup.

[ChrisA Edwards]

We've locked onto the reality show 'Alone'. The contestants have to survive 100 days in the wild, taking just 10 items with them.

They do all the video recording themselves and have a Satellite Phone in case they need to quit.

The fish and hunt and live in some brutal places.

[Jim Matthews]

Reality shows are cheap to produce and these people are getting paid and probably get some vehicles or other things as product placement. In the end, it is just entertainment.
Reality TV and Rap music are the bastard step children of Producers to cheap to pay for script writers or actual talent.

[Brian Elfert]

Reality shows are cheap to produce and these people are getting paid and probably get some vehicles or other things as product placement. In the end, it is just entertainment.

I assume the vehicles aren't product placement since the vehicles are almost never shown. Even when the vehicles were shown in this season you never saw the entire vehicle.

Most of the cast are millionaires and could afford any new vehicle they wanted. The show just tries to portray them as needing to live off the land to be able to eat.

[Ole Anderson]

But to add to what was said is that the show accurately portrays a Swiss family that homesteaded in Alaska in 1940 to escape the Nazis. A family that enjoys living the Alaska life, hunting, fishing, exploring and often putting themselves in danger as they do what they love. A family that is continuing to document their life as they did when they started way back when Yule Kiltcher's 16 mm movie camera was rolling. The show is largely unscripted, unlike so much of the rest of "reality" shows. Sure they probably come up with situations for the sake of the show. But who can fault someone for blowing up things when you can afford it? I believe the show portrays them as wanting to live off the land, not needing to live off the land. Frankly I prefer to watch shows produced in the far north using folks whose first choice in life is not being an actor to those shows produced in Hollywood using folks whose life choice is acting.

[Jon Grider]

But to add to what was said is that the show accurately portrays a Swiss family that homesteaded in Alaska in 1940 to escape the Nazis. A family that enjoys living the Alaska life, hunting, fishing, exploring and often putting themselves in danger as they do what they love. A family that is continuing to document their life as they did when they started way back when Yule Kiltcher's 16 mm movie camera was rolling. The show is largely unscripted, unlike so much of the rest of "reality" shows. Sure they probably come up with situations for the sake of the show. But who can fault someone for blowing up things when you can afford it? I believe the show portrays them as wanting to live off the land, not needing to live off the land. Frankly I prefer to watch shows produced in the far north using folks whose first choice in life is not being an actor to those shows produced in Hollywood using folks whose life choice is acting.

Since I quit cable tv, YouTube has quenched my thirst for viewing off grid far north living. Currently I'm following a guy that lives and works in Churchill, Manitoba (polar bear country) and uses his snow machine to tend to his cabin and trap line about 60 kilometers away. My wife finds it dull, I find him very resourceful and knowledgeable about his craft. Not sayin' I'm enamored with trapping, but his self made videos do portray a lifestyle some dream about. He's always fixing up and improving his cabin and also has a tent frame on the line he uses sometimes. True North Living is his channel if you care to give him a look. He's certainly not an actor, and there is no scripted drama in his videos, but just a taste of what far north trapping entails.

[Brian Elfert]

But to add to what was said is that the show accurately portrays a Swiss family that homesteaded in Alaska in 1940 to escape the Nazis. A family that enjoys living the Alaska life, hunting, fishing, exploring and often putting themselves in danger as they do what they love. A family that is continuing to document their life as they did when they started way back when Yule Kiltcher's 16 mm movie camera was rolling. The show is largely unscripted, unlike so much of the rest of "reality" shows. Sure they probably come up with situations for the sake of the show. But who can fault someone for blowing up things when you can afford it? I believe the show portrays them as wanting to live off the land, not needing to live off the land. Frankly I prefer to watch shows produced in the far north using folks whose first choice in life is not being an actor to those shows produced in Hollywood using folks whose life choice is acting.

I just watched the first two to three minutes of last nights episode. The narrator stated that they needed to do something to survive. The producers do their best to create a picture of families who need to hunt and fish to survive and always show them repairing old junk. The truth is that Otto and Atz are both multi-millionaires and they live 10 or 11 miles from town. They could easily afford to buy all their food and they will definitely survive if they don’t fish and hunt.

Jane was saying last night that she needs 400 pounds of fish to survive over the winter. No, she wants 400 pounds of fish. She could easily afford to buy fish.

in previous seasons the producers have been careful not to show the new(er) vehicles, new appliances, and so on the families have. This stuff is no different than what most middle class families own, but they portray them as not owning the same stuff as modern families.

[Ted Calver]

We've been watching this show since the beginning and fully realize the license TV producers take to make things interesting. I know the Kilchers have money, take expensive guided fishing and hunting trips, live near town, have modern amenities, and can afford heavy equipment, hired helicopters, and nice shops. I'm glad for them. They really make no pretense about those things. They try and honor the homestead tradition passed down through the family and made a successful TV show about it. We overlook the staged aspects of the show and enjoy the scenery and the adventures for the entertainment they are.

Just like most other Alaskans, they try and take advantage of subsistence hunting and fishing opportunities to supplement what they get from the grocery store. I certainly can't fault them for that and agree they probably don't need wild harvested edibles, but having lived for many years in Alaska, I can say that my pantry was always full of canned home grown garden produce and wild picked berry jam and my freezer was always full of salmon, caribou, moose, crab and shrimp....and I did my best to make sure it stayed that way. We didn't need it, but it sure did improve our quality of life.

[Michael Weber]

Years ago when what I guess was an early if not the first reality show was aired my wife and I got a good laugh at the “reality” aspect. Don’t recall the name but there were people supposedly isolated on an island or something. I think we may have watched a couple of minutes before rolling our eyes at the “reality” concept. Despite the proliferation of such I can safely say we have not spent a single minute viewing one. Television just gets stupider and stupider.

[Brian Elfert]

There is nothing wrong with hunting and fishing to eat versus buying at the grocery store. My beef is the narrator constantly stating they need to kill an animal or catch a fish to survive. They'll survive just fine if they don't kill that animal or catch that fish. They can easily afford to go to the grocery store for food.

There are certainly parts of Alaska where buying food is less of an option because the closest grocery store is several hours of travel and no roads.

[Brian Elfert]

There is a big difference between documentary type reality shows and the reality shows which are completely made up for TV like The Apprentice. A hobby group I am a member of didn't renew their agreement with Discovery for a yearly TV special because the show quit showing the real hobby and just made the show into idiots doing stupid stuff with the hobby. The hobby group had a lot of complaints from members about how it portrayed the hobby so the group didn't renew the contract.

Duck Dynasty was supposedly a documentary type reality show, but the producers admitted the show was basically scripted and had nothing to do with reality. The producers gave the cast a story idea for each episode that had nothing to do with running the business.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

An Acquaintance and his friend started a business that got a huge following. I couldn't understand it, neither had the education or experience to be the specialists everyone thought they were. I thought they were only slightly entertaining. Out one day, the guy says hi to me and my wife and my wife turns out to be big fan. I get a ration of crap on the way home for not mentioning that I know them. Some producer gets a hold of the guy and puts together a pilot and some strange channel/network gives them a huge advance, which the acquaintance promptly spends on fancy vehicles and equipment to make himself look better. He stiffed his partners. they get mad and drop out. The acquaintance's criminal acts catch up with him, as does the IRS. The whole thing went to crap in a heartbeat. I feel bad for the one partner who invested big time into their venture. The second partner, a spurned mistress made sure the acquaintance's wife had all the goods for the divorce proceedings. The fellow burned so many bridges the only thing he had left for himself was scorched earth. What actually happened in the "rest of the story" would have made a better show than the reality show that was planned.

[Bill Dufour]

Wrestling is also a scripted tv show. Jessie Ventura made it to governor of Minnesota, Weightlifter and body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of california. The actor Ronald Regan was governor and US president.
Bill D.

The movie "Total Recall" has no relation to running for office.

[Stan Calow]

I miss the good old days when HGTV was about knowledgable people sharing useful information, not a bunch of house-flipping real estate porn.

[Doug Garson]

I find it puzzling that my post which simply said I thought the Apprentice was a game show not a reality show was deleted? What part of the TOS does that even come close to violating?

[Andrew Joiner]

I'll rate reality TV from "most real" to "hard to believe it's reality"
1- Alone "most real"
2- The Last Frontier- partly real, but I still like it.
3- Undercover Billionaire- hard to believe, but it's entertaining
4- ALL TV news channels lately- "hard to believe it's reality"

[Ron Citerone]

Next you guys are gonna say The Bachelor isn’t real! :rolleyes:

[Doug Dawson]

I miss the good old days when HGTV was about knowledgable people sharing useful information, not a bunch of house-flipping real estate porn.

The same thing happened with the Food Network. Now it’s unwatchable. I miss David Rosengarten. Thoughts of a more civilized time.

With the current straight-up reality shows, I can’t help but wondering, do these people notice the presence of a camera crew? :^) That should tell you all you need to know.

[Ole Anderson]

Reading these comments is much like watching reality TV. Lots of opinions with the cameras rolling. I wonder how much is almost trolling with the cynicism running rampant? Ok, I will admit I am stoking the embers just a bit...in the end it is all entertainment even the Creek. If you don't care for it, just change the channel or go back to reading Shakespeare.

[Bill Dufour]

Yeah but, Shakesphere said all the worlds a stage. So he foresaw reality TV with cameras everywhere.
Bill D

[Tom M King]

I don't think the people in those types of shows on the History channel, or Discovery channel, or whatever they are, get paid much. I was contacted by the Producer of a few of those shows, like Mountain Man (or something like that), to host a series they had an idea for. It was to be filmed halfway across the country. I wasn't really interested, but played along until it came to the point that how much they would pay came up. They talked like it was really great that they could offer me 40,000 for a five month filming session. I wished them luck, and tried to hold my laughter until I hung up.

edited to add: TV has been a good help through all the staying at home. We've watched GOT all the way through for the second time (the second time everything makes a lot more sense), enjoyed the whole Outlander series, Mandalorian (nothing like as good as those first two, but still not a bad pastime), and last night News of the World, which was very well done. I can't watch those "reality" shows.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

An guy I have me a few times and lives a few miles away was on Forged in Fire. I know that guy is a heck of a blacksmith. As for a blade smith, maybe not so much. The show is sort of a cross between reality and game show. Unlike some of the stupidity on tv, the show depends on the skill and efficiency of the participants. I do wish they would highlight the making of more useful items, compared to some obscure cutting blade known only to the hill tribes of borneo.

[Doug Garson]

A few years ago we stayed at a B&B in Costa Rica. They told us the story of how they were on House Hunters International. When they were approached to be on the show they had been in their house for 2 years. It was all staged, they even moved most of their furniture into the garage for the filming. Yeah, a reality show.

[Brian Elfert]

An guy I have me a few times and lives a few miles away was on Forged in Fire. I know that guy is a heck of a blacksmith. As for a blade smith, maybe not so much. The show is sort of a cross between reality and game show. Unlike some of the stupidity on tv, the show depends on the skill and efficiency of the participants. I do wish they would highlight the making of more useful items, compared to some obscure cutting blade known only to the hill tribes of borneo.

Forged in Fire seems to have a lot of reality to it. I wish they would go back to giving the blacksmiths a piece of steel instead of making them use scrap iron, old cars and such.

I suspect part of the reason for the unusual knives they make for the finale is they don't want to repeat the same knives over and over again. The show has done several hundred episodes already.

[Ole Anderson]

Another show filmed in Alaska, Life Below Zero, seems pretty realistic, no fancy machinery here (except for Sue the cigar chomping sole proprietor of the airstrip/hunting camp in Kavik 500 miles from the nearest city), and the local store for most is not around the corner. One thing those shows have in common that you need to put in the back of your mind is that there is a cameraman present most of the time, some occasionally self-film. Some shows acknowledge their presence, others never. Other ones I follow are Gold Rush, Building Alaska, Deadliest Catch. I enjoy the Weather Channel's Highway from Hell filmed in B.C. And a father-son Ontario cabin building YouTube channel called The Outsider https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChehL6PYmucEHUS6g2LVFGA

[Jerome Stanek]

I've seen most of those shows pay about $20000 per person per episode

[Brian Elfert]

I would think the pay would vary based on the popularity of the show. There are families with a total of seven people and they certainly aren't paid $140,000 per episode.

I've read that 10% of the production cost is what the "cast" often receives. A show that features a business pays 5% because the business is getting a lot of publicity by being on the show. If a family gets $40,000 per episode does that means it costs $400,000 per episode to make an episode? That seems like a lot of money to follow a family with a camera crew, but I have read that the shows often pay for restaurant meals, vacation trips, and other activities that are filmed for TV. One family followed on TV said they would do a celebration at a restaurant on camera and then do a second celebration off camera.

[Jerome Stanek]

I would think the pay would vary based on the popularity of the show. There are families with a total of seven people and they certainly aren't paid $140,000 per episode.

I've read that 10% of the production cost is what the "cast" often receives. A show that features a business pays 5% because the business is getting a lot of publicity by being on the show. If a family gets $40,000 per episode does that means it costs $400,000 per episode to make an episode? That seems like a lot of money to follow a family with a camera crew, but I have read that the shows often pay for restaurant meals, vacation trips, and other activities that are filmed for TV. One family followed on TV said they would do a celebration at a restaurant on camera and then do a second celebration off camera.

How much do you think sitcom actors are paid. $400,000 is not even what one actor is paid per episode pus they have to pay for all the supporting people like makeup, sound camera men, writers and more.

[Doug Dawson]

How much do you think sitcom actors are paid. $400,000 is not even what one actor is paid per episode pus they have to pay for all the supporting people like makeup, sound camera men, writers and more.
Top people on top-rated broadcast shows might make that (think Seinfeld or Big Bang Theory.) Bryan Cranston made 225k per episode of Breaking Bad, and that was a major “basic cable” show, with a budget of a bit over 1million/episode. Streaming shows (the majority of what’s going now) are significantly tighter.

[Jim Becker]

One aspect of many of these shows, particularly the competition type reality shows, that sometimes gets missed in the public eye is the long delay from recording until airing the "final" episode. In many cases, the "common folks" featured had to leave jobs and their families for months during the recording of the episodes and then they go home. They are legally bound to not tell anyone what the outcome was (winnings held as hostage) and the winner's often do not get their prize money and other benefits until the airing of the final episode happened. One recent winner of a very popular cooking competition nearly lost their living accommodations for them and their teenage kid because they had no income for many months, having quit their jobs to compete, an limited opportunities for short-term work that paid enough. What they earned during taping was not enough to carry them through. So despite the glamor of competing, it was rough both emotionally, physically and financially.

[Bill Dufour]

The Movie "Galaxy Quest" is based on the idea that another planet sees a scifi tv show and believes it is a real unscripted documentry. They build their own spaceship based on the tv props and come to earth. In case you couldn't figure it out it is a comedy with Tim Allan.
'Bill D

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/

[Ole Anderson]

I read yesterday that the folks on Life Below Zero are paid $4500 per episode. Google seems to know what any television personality receives per episode.