"We’ve all been instructed by network executives to amp up drama — cheat this, make her say that at this moment, make that argument look more epic."Reality TV is dying. I know it’s hard to believe with social media users yapping about Season 21 of “The Bachelorette” and the upcoming season of “Love Is Blind.” But on the other side of that black mirror, the people who make these beloved reality shows are being starved out of the business.
In December 2023, my contract was ending on a very popular prison love story series that I had worked on for three years. I had just finished my first novel, which took forever to write while I was working 50-plus hours cutting shows, and I was burned out. Instead of renewing my contract, I decided to take some time off to get my manuscript ready to send out to agents.
If audiences saw the raw footage of reality TV stars, you’d fall asleep in front of your TVs or go to another app on your phone. Editors have been instructed for years to feed you counterfeit drama to keep you watching so the networks could get more money from advertisers — so network executives could show more profits and give themselves higher salaries.Kathleen Finch, chair and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S.
Charlie Cusumano, a New York-based editor, has only worked five days in the past four months. “I’m bartending and driving an Uber,” he told me. “I am trying to switch careers, but what would I do? What kind of job would be a lateral move?” In other words, large companies whose TV networks were built on and have solely relied upon advertising dollars to survive were not able to stretch that revenue to sustain both network TV programming and commercial-free streaming platforms with a small monthly fee. So now, major corporations that own dozens of networks cannot afford to populate them with new original content.This is the most likely scenario for why an entire industry has so many people who are out of work.
New York-based editor Brian Kushner worked six months last year and has only worked two weeks this year. Perhaps when this is all over, our industry will emerge stronger, with more protections for its workers, and we’ll all get health insurance and 401s. But my guess is that it’s not going to get easier for us.
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