For Gretchen Kinder, there's nothing quite like making reality TV. She worked her way up the ranks over two plus decades from production assistant to line producer and executive, using her skills to pull off dazzling logistical feats — like the time she was up at 4 a.m. to get a boat captain to sign off on using his vessel so they could load in crew by 6. 'Unscripted TV is incredibly challenging. Those challenges keep you on your toes more than scripted TV,' she said.
In one stark example of the effects of media consolidation, the unscripted TV division at HBO Max, as the streaming service was then known, faced deep cuts after Warner Bros. merged with Discovery. 'We're being looked at as making widgets, and it's cheaper to make the widgets in Georgia or Canada, which is why we're seeing so much runaway production happening,' Thompson said. 'It's killing people.' Some say this downturn was inevitable.