The Road to Reality: The Story of Non-fiction Television Entertainment

The Road to Reality:
The Story of Non-fiction Television Entertainment
A multi-media proposal from Nicholas Stein

The Road to Reality will be the first book (with DVD/CD package) to chronicle the fascinating evolution of the non-fiction, entertainment television industry, perhaps the most powerful and pervasive genre in the medium today. Told by Nicholas Stein, a 30-year veteran of reality, documentary and infotainment programming, this will be, in large part, an in-the-trenches, eyewitness account of the significant turning points in the continuing story of reality based television.

From the pilot of NBC’s Real People to the birth of Paramount’s Entertainment Tonight; from the capture of the first fugitive on America’s Most Wanted to the newest spin-off of Discovery’s hit series Monster Garage, Nick Stein has been a successful traveler on the Road to Reality. In this unique multi-media project, he’ll introduce us to the corporate forces, talented people and changing tastes that have taken us from the first non-news network documentary (David Wolper’s 1960 Race for Space) to the explosion of today’s outrageous reality shows proliferating across the TV spectrum.

Always an astute observer of the business, Stein will use his experience in the reality/non-fiction world to tell a story full of
high adventure, powerful personalities, shady network politics
and risky business dealings. Taking benefit from his long-term relationships with the top producers in the field, he will conduct insider interviews that will be replete with colorful and revealing anecdotes, allowing the reader a sense of being there at the creation. This book will, for the first time, connect the dots and show seminal moments in an industry that has affected the entire telecommunications landscape.

The Road to Reality will be enhanced with DVD footage, CD audio, still photos and helpful graphics to create a visual chronicle of this five-decade history. These elements, along with the voices of the industry and Stein’s insightful commentary, will help tell the story of this ever morphing environment; a powerful genre who’s origins will be made clear, but who’s future is still anybody’s guess.

The DVD that will be packaged with the book will include wonderful clips from many of the featured shows as well as interviews with a number of the top non-fiction TV producers.

On the following pages you will find a book proposal that includes an editorial overview, followed by a forward. After that are 15 distinct chapter headings and descriptions of what each chapter will cover. Finally there is a CV detailing Nicholas Stein’s career in the non-fiction television industry.
Enjoy.
NS

The Road to Reality:
The Story of Non-fiction Television Entertainment

Anyone who is alive today, and owns a television set, is being bombarded with something called Reality TV. Whether a fan of the genre or not, it’s a phenomenon that cannot be ignored, having seemingly overwhelmed the tube in just a few short years. From MTV’s Cribs to PBS’s Frontier House, from Machiavellian “survivor” games to fly-on-the-wall docu-soaps, Reality is King.

Suddenly cameras are everywhere, recording people’s most intense and intimate moments. The unblinking digital eye captures anger, frustration, joy, embarrassment, surprise and shame in equal measure. It matters not if the human subjects are simply leading their own lives or if they are functioning as a pawn inside an artificial environmental game dreamed up in a pitch meeting - the promise is the same, “You will see unrehearsed, spontaneous and real moments unfolding before your very eyes! No script, no actors, no kidding.

Younger audiences, weaned in interactive computer-laden environments, couldn’t wait to leave the three camera sitcom living room set behind for a chance to see 15 strangers (or bachelors or B-level celebrities or just married couples or wanna-be singing stars) on a deserted island (or stage or mansion or haunted house) plot against each other. Whether they knew it or not, they were inexorably drawn to the train wreck that comes from combining elements of Lord of the Flies with Orwell’s 1984.

Why has this new genre taken the TV world by storm? It’s been said that viewers identify with the ordinary people who are cast as participants, mirror’s of themselves who then become (briefly) famous; it’s also been noted that audiences are titillated by the voyeuristic thrill they get from second guessing how the cast will cope with an ever changing and challenging environments. Participants, on the other hand, are attracted to the potential of instant fame that a highly rated reality TV show offers. As one potential cast member said, “I just want to get on television. I’ve had a desire to be famous all my life.”

But the roots of Survivor and Big Brother, the origins of Monster Garage and American Chopper, the beginnings of Real World, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, Pimp My Ride, Average Joe and The Bachelor began over 50 years ago with a man who is, without a doubt, the father of all non-fiction television entertainment. His name is David L. Wolper.

Arguably the most successful independent documentary producer
to have ever worked in the medium, it was Wolper, and his gang of renegade young west coast filmmakers, that proved that non-news, non-fiction entertainment programs could appeal to a large audience. With a career span of nearly fifty years, this seminal and prolific filmmaker has left an enormous imprint on the media landscape and is often referred to as the father of reality TV.

After Wolper’s many years of crow-barring non-news entertainment docs onto the network’s dramatically dominated primetime schedules in the 60’s, the seeds of the modern era of reality TV were planted in the early 70s with shows like Candid Camera, Evening Magazine, Real People, An American Family (the infamous Louds), That’s Incredible and America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Starting in 1976, the author, Nicholas Stein, was involved in numerous non-fiction productions and as the industry matured, shifted and changed, he had one of the best seats in the house! Stein directly participated in the “docutainment” revolution as a cameraman, editor, writer, producer, director and development executive, as well as a series and executive producer for almost 30 years. His list of credits run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime… and back again. From local news (WBZ-TV) to world music (National Geographic’s World Music Special), from the planet’s most exotic sports (Amazing Games) to America’s most bizarre people (Real People) and from the untold story of the monster Frankenstein (an ABC Special) to presiding over Monster Nation (on the Discovery Channel), Stein was there when things were born, when things changed and when things counted.

Briefly: Stein was working in local news when the “eyewitness news teams” were 1st being coached by entertainment consultants who taught anchors “happy talk” and “…if it bleeds it leads”. Later, as a video editor, he went to NY to work on network TV’s first attempt to make a primetime entertainment magazine show (People TV with Phyllis George, CBS, 1978).

From People, he moved to LA to work on the pilot of Real People, NBC’s hit show about the common man. Stein left Real People to join another show just getting started: Entertainment Tonight, Paramount’s groundbreaking daily “entertainment news show” (1985). It wasn’t long before Stein moved back to NYC to make a PBS special about the effects of violence on television with legendary NBC reporter Edwin Newman - and while there, he was asked to produce a film that ultimately became part of National Geographic’s pilot for Explorer, the Society’s first foray into cable TV. (1985).

In 1989 ESPN commissioned it’s first true global documentary series, Amazing Games (1989), a series Stein created about the world’s most exotic sports at ABC/Kane Productions. It was hosted by legendary NFL wide receiver Bob Chandler. Later, and during much of the 90’s, Stein was VP of Development at ABC/Kane, creating and producing shows that mostly ran on the various Discovery Channels.

In 1998 he would return to the Yellow Border as the producer of the two-hour National Geographic Millennium Special on NBC, a celebration of the Society’s accomplishments and the nature of time itself. (1999).

All during this journey Stein worked for, and with, many of the prime movers and shakers who shaped the industry including executive producers Nick Noxon, Irwin Rosten, Mel Stuart & Alan Landsburg, all of whom worked for David Wolper in Los Angeles.

Other luminaries were David Susskind and George Schlatter (People and Real People respectively), Vin Di Bona (America’s Funniest Home Videos), Jim Bellows (Entertainment Tonight), Woody Fraiser (That’s Incredible), Arnold Shapiro (Scared Straight, Rescue 911 & Big Brother), Dennis Kane (National Geographic Specials) Mike Quattrone (Discovery Channel) and Thom Beers (Monster Garage): all non-fiction impresarios who have had long track records of spinning the straws of reality into the gold of success.

The Road to Reality is planned as a non-fiction book (and DVD) for the layman and industry reader alike, and it will be tell the history of non-fiction and reality TV from the trenches. It will be filled with eyewitness accounts of how the non-fiction TV business went from independent documentaries to high concept network reality shows.

The Forward to:
The Road to Reality:
The Story of Non-fiction Television Entertainment

I didn’t know what to do. It was my first day at my first real job and I was about to cross a picket line!

Graduation was last Friday, it was now Monday morning and I had hardly slept in anticipation of working at one of the best-known TV stations in the country. WBZ-TV, Channel 4 was the historic NBC affiliate in Boston and I was beginning my career as a vacation-relief-news-film-editor.

I got the job through my professor at Emerson College, Vin Di Bona, a soft-spoken and elegant gentleman with prominent black-rimmed glasses. He was a respected documentary film producer who taught at Emerson and worked at BZ.

Later in his life he was to borrow an idea from a Japanese television program and re-invent the show that was destined to make home movies prime time fare; America’s Funniest Home Videos.

So there I was, about to enter the television work force but standing between my future career and me were a dozen burly and surly men, carrying placards walking in a circle in front of the station. I nervously parked my car in the lot across the street and saw a guy I recognized from my interview. He was a fellow film editor and obviously an old hand. His shift was over and he was leaving. When I asked him what to do about the picket line, he said matter-of-factly, “Well when they yell scab, you just yell back IATSE!” and with that piece of advice given, he got in his car and left.

I had no idea what he was talking about but sure enough, as I went to enter the building, the guys on the line yelled “fucking scab!” and I yelled back, “IATSE!”

I might as well have said “Open Sesame!”, because like that magic incantation, the way was suddenly cleared for me to enter. The picketers went immediately from menacing to meek, shrugged their shoulders and went back to walking the line. The magic word had worked!

Later I discovered from my new co-workers that IATSE (International Alliance of Television & Stage Employees) was the union I was now joining (who knew?) and the guys on the line were members of IBEW (International Brotherhood and Electrical Workers). We were the film guys and they were the engineer guys, and though both groups were in the AFL-CIO, neither local had historically honored each other’s picket lines in their respective labor disputes with Westinghouse management. All my “IA” guys said about it was… “Fuck ‘em”.

My days at WBZ were an eye opener. Much like combat, there were stretches of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer panic. It was not unusual for the lead story to come into the shop 30 minutes before six, get developed in the “soup” (as it was shot on film) and then rushed into our rooms. There, a reporter and I slammed the “sync sound” pieces together (interviews and his “stand-ups”), whereupon he’d leave to record the narration track as I assembled the “b-roll”. Then, with the clock ticking down to zero, I literally ran it down the hall (like a halfback in the open field avoiding tacklers) and threw the reel onto a projector. Within moments, the guys in the booth would cue the anchors, start the projector and then take it on the air. Looking at the story unfold on the screen you’d think we’d had all day to put it together.

There’s no doubt in my mind that editing news film for the noon, 6pm and 11pm newscasts was the best training in non-fiction a young filmmaker could possibly have. The deadlines were relentless, the stories varied and the “brothers-in-arms” camaraderie was forged by a work ethic that prided itself on being both good and fast… and, in so many ways, that pace, variety and excitement continued long after I left local news, left Boston and made my way in the wider worlds of New York and LA. As of this writing, it’ll be almost 30 years since that day outside of WBZ and it’s been a hell of a ride.

Escaping killer bees and anti government rioters in Panama, riding shotgun with undercover cops in Miami, interviewing weeping WW2 veterans on the island of Iwo Jima, fighting with a legendary National Geographic cameraman at a 500 year old fencing academy in Milan, bungi-jumping off a 12 story bridge in New Zealand, being stepped on by a police horse during a race riot in Boston, standing over 2 day old baby waiting for it’s heart to begin beating again in an tense and silent operating room… all of these things have happened to me because I chose to tell real stories on television.

Non-fiction television, non-news entertainment, reality TV, TV documentaries, factual programming, infotainment, cinema vertite, actuality TV, docu-soaps; all these monikers have been used to try
and give a name for telling real stories. Human stories, animal stories, adventure stories, medical stories, comical stories, sports stories, historical stories, musical stories… my colleagues and I have told them all, and continue to tell them on a myriad of old and new channels.

From A to Z the business has given me a front row seat to the theater of life on this planet (human and otherwise) and allowed me access to situations and environments most folks never dream of. In my case I have worked on all sides of the track - highbrow and low end, exalted and exploitative, prestigious and preposterous.

And now, after 30 years, after traveling to over 40 countries, after working for 20 different production companies and dozens of cable and over the air networks and after spending nearly 1⁄2 my waking hours in countless windowless edit rooms, I have decided not to tell my story so much as to try and tell the story of this wonderful and crazy business of non-fiction entertainment.

Why? Because, from it’s not so humble beginnings (for who in show business is really humble?) the power of TV has finally made reality into something called REALITY and our collective sense of what is really real is now anybody’s guess. This fascinates me, as the non-fiction business has always fascinated me.

I tried to pay attention to the bigger picture as I participated in helping the 3 network solar system turn into the 50 channel universe; as a 30 share was replaced by one rating point as a measure of success; as niche networks like Animal Planet, HGTV and ESPN Classic started to replace the circle, the peacock and the eye, and as the DVD box set started to replace syndicated re-runs and foreign sales as the ultimate after market end game.

I have done my research and I have seen many great books on the art of the documentary and the sociological meaning behind Big Brother and Survivor. I have seen instructional manuals on how to write, pitch, shoot and edit your own TV shows and I have read the Idiots Guide to Final Cut Pro… but I have not yet found a book (or DVD box set) on the development of non-fiction TV and it appears that no one has yet tried to chronicle the evolution of what is, generally speaking, a 50-year genre, a phenomenon that spans 1955 to 2005 or, as I like to say, from Wolper to Survivor!

Simple math will tell you that my own 30-year contribution does represent a good percentage of the life span of this many headed beast and so it is my hope that I prove a credible eyewitness, as I was lucky enough to be present at many of the turning points and important developments that have already changed the face of television, and soon the internet.

• I was there when local news teams were 1st being coached by entertainment consultants who taught anchors “happy talk” and “…if it bleeds it leads”.
• I was there as a video editor on network TV’s first attempt to make a primetime entertainment magazine show (People TV with Phyllis George, CBS, 1978).
• I was there on the pilot of Real People, NBC’s hit show about the common man, often referred to as the father of reality TV.
• I was there in the maiden year of Paramount’s groundbreaking daily “entertainment news show” Entertainment Tonight.
• I there producing a film that was part of National Geographic’s pilot for Explorer, the Society’s first foray into cable TV.
• I was there as the creator of ESPN’s first true global documentary series, Amazing Games (1989).
• I was there as the producer of National Geographic’s Millennium Special on NBC, a celebration of the Society’s 35 years in TV and of the nature of time itself.
• I was there supplying the new niche channels like The Food Network, HGTV and Discovery Health.
• I was there with Peter Gabriel as National Geographic first discovered World Music.
• I was there for the "motorcyclization" of Discovery Channel as all things Monster and Chopper took over the brand.

But I was not there alone. I had plenty of company. I have had the privilege of working for the men and women who have shaped the docu-tainment business; the program makers, the job creators and the production company owners who took the risks and reaped the rewards of telling real stories about real people - and you cannot mention real people without invoking the name of George Schlatter, the man who may well be the father of the modern age of reality TV, the inventor of NBC’s Real People. George was not as documentarian by trade, he was in fact a variety show impresario who was already famous for creating Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In.

Before him was the pantheon of the non-fiction TV gods, the men who got there start with the “producer who made things happen” David Wolper. Men like Nick Noxon, Irwin Rosten and Dennis Kane, all associates of mine who blazed a trail on network television at a time when the networks’ only forays into non-fiction was through their news departments.

Later there would be others, sometimes-younger men who would come and commercialize the genre finding larger and larger audiences. Vin Di Bona (America’s Funniest Home Videos), Jim Bellows (Entertainment Tonight), Alan Landsburg (In Search of…, That’s Incredible) Arnold Shapiro (Scared Straight, Rescue 911), Dennis Kane (National Geographic Specials), Mike Quattrone (The Discovery Channel’s first GM), Eric Schotz (Eye on LA, How’d They Do That?), Gary Benz (The Surreal Life, Untold Stories of the ER) and Thom Beers (Monster Garage, Monster House, Deadliest Catch).

So, this then is the story I wish to tell; a story told not just by me, but also by the many eyewitnesses to the evolution of the non-fiction TV industry; a genre that today falls under the larger heading and umbrella of Reality TV.

It’s a multi-media project which could only be produced now in my 30th year of practicing the art, and science, of telling real stories about real people... and it could only happen with the help and support of my colleagues and associates with whom I have shared this journey. It is my ferverent hope that the reader will find the examination of this subject both relevant and illuminating.

Nicholas Stein
December 2005


Chapter Headings for:
The Road to Reality:
The Story of Non-fiction Television Entertainment

1. The Wolper Magic: The Marriage of Info and Entertainment

This opening chapter will pay homage to the “father” of reality television and his group of intrepid filmmakers who changed TV forever. An aggressive salesman, Wolper's notoriety helped to launch a significant number of documentary projects that found their way to network time slots. David Wolper pioneered techniques that are standard today.

These early films consisted of editing photo stills and film clips to narration and music, with occasional recreations of footage, minimal editorial viewpoint and high-information, high-entertainment value. Increasingly successful, within four years of establishing Wolper Productions, Wolper's method would place him on a level with NBC and CBS as one of the three largest producers of television documentaries and documentary specials. Some of his early titles included: 1958 Race for Space, 1960 Hollywood: The Golden Years, 1960, ’64 & ‘68 Making of the President, 1963 Ten Seconds That Shook the World, 1964 The Legend of Marilyn Monroe, 1965 007: The Incredible World of James Bond, 1966 Wall Street: Where the Money Is and 1968 On the Trail of Stanley and Livingstone.

We will talk to incomparable David Wolper, his long time associate Mel Stuart as well as Nick Noxon, Irwin Rosten and Mike Wallace as we show, and tell, the story of the legendary LA office of David L. Wolper Productions.

2. The Crown Jewels; National Geographic and Cousteau Specials

Again David Wolper is front and center as we look at the TV specials that were known as the crown jewels of non-news network documentary. Wolper was contracted to produce the first National Geographic Specials (including Americans On Everest, Miss Goodall & The Wild Chimpanzees, Dr. Leakey and The Dawn Of Man) but later people like Dennis Kane, Thomas Skinner, Carol Hughes & David Hughes, Tim & June Liversedge, Dereck & Beverly Joubert, came up through the ranks to make some of the most important films in the Society’s library. We will trace the evolution of this legendary series from the first one on 1965 to their place along side the National Geographic Channel.

And it was Wolper again who saw in a skinny Frenchman a mix of romantic explorer and dedicated scientist that was to make Jacques Cousteau a household name. The films of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his adventures on the Calypso's fascinated the public and drew attention to the potentially disastrous environmental consequences of human negligence. Cousteau, through his life and his work, was a major player in the environmental movement and it was Wolper who out him on TV.

3. Eyewitness to Eye Witness News & Evening Magazine

In 1976 Nick Stein entered the work force as a vacation-relief-news-film-editor at WBZ-TV and so was witness to a sea change in the way local television news was reported. Almost overnight, local TV news departments went from an FCC obligation to a profit center, as “entertainment” consultants coached the stations about everything from story selection to theme music to hairstyles. Jeff Fager, now Don Hewitt’s successor as the producer of CBS’s 60 Minutes, was the assignment editor at WBZ News and will tell us about this extraordinary evolution.

We’ll also talk to the reporters who rose to anchormen when these changes came about. Tony Pepper and Jack Williams the leading members of WBZ’s Eyewitness News Team will recall that era. Also, at that same time, Westinghouse experimented with a new kind of local show that aired during the FCC mandated local “family” hour from 7-8pm. Robyn Young was the on camera talent for new Evening Magazine (later PM Magazine) and Tom Houghton was her Boston based producer.

4. People, Real People and That’s Incredible

David Susskind was a powerful producer and talk show host in the late 70’s and it was he who persuaded Time Life Inc. to try and turn their profitable magazine People into a primetime CBS series. It was also Nick Stein’s first job in network TV. Hosted by ex-Miss America Phyliss George, this was the first network magazine show that did not emanate from the news division. It also was a precursor to Entertainment Tonight and the E! Entertainment Network by being the first show to document the comings and goings of America’s stars and celebrities. The show, alas, ran for only 8 episodes, beaten out by a brand new force in primetime - Monday Night Football! We’ll talk to Charlotte Shiff Jones, the show’s producer and with Phyllis George.

Real People may have succeeded where People failed perhaps because of Executive Producer George Schllater. George was a bigger- than-life showman who had already stunned the nation with a silly and yet subversive variety show called Rowen and Martin’s Laugh In.

When Schllater turned his sights on “the common man”, NBC reaped a bonanza and non-fiction TV would never be the same. Stein worked on the pilot and the first 3 seasons as an editor. We’ll also talk to another Wolper protégé, Alan Landsburg, whose ABC series “That’s Incredible” gave Real People a real run for the money.

5. Entertainment Tonight and how it changed everything!

Since its pioneering debut in 1981 as the first satellite-beamed, day-and-date entertainment news program, Entertainment Tonight has become the bedrock of American culture and the "most-watched entertainment newsmagazine in the world”. By virtually creating the genre, ET paved the way for news outlets the world over to cover entertainment news.

Before he invented America’s Funniest Home Videos, producer Vin Di Bona (and later legendary newspaper man James Bellows) forged the first seasons amidst outcries from the established news media that this new kind of news show would forever blur the reporting of real news from news about a world built on the fantasy and fiction. Stein was there as the post-production supervisor in those early, heady days.

6. Nat Geo Puts a Toe in the Cable Waters, Discovery Dives In!

It was on April 7, 1985 that National Geographic Explorer debuted on cable television (on Nickelodeon no less!) but by February of ‘86 the weekly magazine series had moved to Ted Turner’s TBS Super Station and become the longest-running documentary series on cable TV. Stein produced a film for the pilot (entitled Cajun Carver) and went on to make 7 more films through the next few years. While NGT had this presence on cable, the Society resisted the idea of starting its own channel and it was in this vacuum that the Discovery Channel was born. We’ll speak with Dennis Kane who was Executive Producer of NGT and Thom Beers who was a WTBS Executive. We’ll also talk to the men who were there at the beginning including Tim Kelly, Steve Eder and Tom Simon.

Seeing the National Geographic was worried about “overexposing the brand”, John Hendricks was free to create the Discovery Channel, making it the first cable network in the United States designed to provide round the clock documentary programming. The Discovery Channel launched on June 17, 1985 with 156,000 subscribers. The first program telecast was Iceberg Alley. In 1991, Discovery acquires The Learning Channel, in ‘96, Animal Planet and in’97, The Travel Channel. By 2001: Discovery Channel had become the world's most widely distributed television brand.

Among others, we’ll talk to Jon Hendricks, Founder DCI, as well as Mike Quattrone, the General Manager of the Discovery Channel during its most rapid period of growth.

7. Tabloid TV and Crime TV Become America’s Most Wanted

Legit news and tabloid news: newspapers had already shown they could live side by side - for instance the NY Post and the New York Times had co-existed in the same city for years - and so it was only a matter of time before TV’s “legit news” would try and co-exist with TV tabloid news. Paramount’s Hard Copy and Fox’s Current Affair led the way with their sensational and breathless stories about sex, celebrities and scandal. At the same time, Fox premiered a new show starring John Walsh, the father of a kidnapped and murdered boy, and it was called America’s Most Wanted.

Stein was working at America’s Most Wanted its early days when the show dramatically captured its first fugitive and the media frenzy about vigilante TV helped launch it into a mega hit that lasts until today. Michael Linder, Steven Chow and Brian Gadinsky were all there at the beginning and we will talk about why America was ready to “…help bring this man to justice”.

We will also look at another seminal crime show, Unsolved Mystery, that lasted so long (on network and cable) it was dubbed the show that would not die! These and other crime oriented shows paved the way for Court TV that now dubs itself the Investigative Channel but really is a 24/7 dose of fear, murder and mayhem. We’ll look into America’s endless fascination with violent crime and the people who solve these cases.

8. Outside the Lines: ESPN Becomes a Story Teller.

In the early days of ESPN, long before there was Sports Center and huge baseball, football and basketball contracts, the fledgling network took a chance on a show about the world’s most exotic sports and ran Nicholas Stein’s Amazing Games for from 1989 to 1995. Doing 5 specials a year, the Amazing Games team scoured the world for little known competitions (Reindeer racing in Finland, Camel Wrestling in Turkey, Canal Jumping in Holland etc.) that opened a door on a whole new understanding of what sports means to different cultures. The Wall Street Journal called it the National Geographic of Sports and it proved to be ESPN’s first real entrée into the documentary form. Since then, with A Century of Sports (on ESPN Classic) and Outside the Lines, ESPN has contributed to a new body of work that has illuminated why sports is such an effective x-ray into society.

Outside the Lines has been particularly laudable, having covered hazing by school sports teams, the overseas labor practices of U.S. sneaker companies, the impact of technology and genetic science on sports, as well as the issues of violence, gambling, celebrity and AIDS in the sport world. Today the network has launched ESPN Hollywood, a daily show that further blurs the line between sports and show business and so their storytelling approach changes once again.

We will talk with Roger Werner, Former CEO ESPN, Nick Durrie, Former President ABC/Kane, Nicholas Stein, Creator/Producer, Amazing Games, Steve Bornstein, CEO of NFL-TV and Former CEO ESPN as well as Mark Shapiro, soon to be ESPN's former executive VP of Programming and Production,

9. Trading Spaces: The Beginning of Transformational TV

A small TV series with an unusual idea (have neighbors decorate each others houses) became a surprise hit that spawned a whole new genre of non-fiction TV, one that went beyond the “reality build show”. Trading Spaces showed the power of transformational TV (its also been called Cinderella TV by the New York Times), ie: a program that takes the viewer through specific steps as something (or someone) gets completely made over.

The attraction for a niche cable audience, and the network audience as well, is the build up and then The Reveal. Monster Garage, Extreme Make Over, While You Were Out, Pimp My Ride and a whole host of HGTV shows use this successful transformational formula. We’ll talk to Mike Maloy of Extreme Make Over: Home Edition and Tara Sandler, Pietown Productions + HGTV

10. Re - Creations and CGI: Tools of the Trade

One of non-fictions TV’s hallmarks is its ability to adapt to whatever story telling device is needed to get the job done. David Wolper was the first documentary filmmaker to us actors to re-enact scenes from history to help tell a dramatic, yet true, story. The press went crazy when he inter-cut newsreel footage with his dramatic recreations to tell the story of the attempted assassination of Adolph Hitler. The critics complained that they could not tell the difference between the actor playing Hitler and Hitler himself. Wolper couldn’t have been more pleased.

Later, another company bought the “stock footage” and used the recreations, thinking they were the real McCoy. Today, the use of computer-generated imagery is revolutionizing non-fiction television both in historical pieces (where a couple of re-enactor soldiers can be multiplied to become an army!) and in science shows where the unseen world can be made visible. We’ll look at the newest story telling devices and the latest hi-tech gear that’s being used in the business today. We’ll talk to, among others, Gary Tarpinian of Morningstar Entertainment who has recently completed one hour history specials, the Battle of the Bulge and Waterloo, using advanced green screen and CGI techniques to create amazing battle scenes on a small cable budget.

11. The Real World: How a Show on MTV Started a Mega-trend

Many believe that the modern era of Reality TV began with a modest MTV series called The Real World. This was the first show to take real people (in this case hunky and pretty twenty-somethings) and put them in an artificial environment for an extended period of time. The idea was to watch as they formed their own rules, their inevitable attachments and their own small society. This show (now in it’s 14th year) proved the incubator for many reality shows to come and it was the show that demonstrated that young people 1. Liked to see themselves reflected back at them and 2. Preferred not being able to guess how the story ends. We’ll talk to Jon Murray, Executive Producer of Real World + Road Rules, as well as a number of the original cast members.

12. Docutainment - The Production Companies

Most people don’t realize that when they see a show on Bravo, the Discovery Channel, ABC or A&E that that show is not made by the network it airs on. Ninety nine percent of all programming is made my relatively small production companies who pitch, sell and produce the non-fiction fare we see on TV. In Hollywood and New York there have emerged a number of companies who have created the lion’s share of this kind of TV and they survive in a dog-eat-dog environment.

The heads of these companies are well known in the non-fiction business and in this chapter we’ll meet a few of the legends, including Eric Schotz, LMNO Productions; Bruce Nash, Nash Entertainment; Thom Beers, Original Productions, Tracy Verna, Fremantle Media and Greg Piligian, Pilgrim Films.

13. Surviving the Fear Factor: The Networks and Reality TV.

When Philo T. Farnsworth invented the electric television, he probably did not think that it would be used to show people eating bugs, finding husbands based on votes of viewers, or living on deserted islands. But that is exactly what you can see any given night on network television now. The Big 4 (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) got their first real taste of this new wave with Survivor and they immediately saw a huge ratings and demographic opportunity. Since then it’s been the nets that have taken the genre to new highs and certainly new lows.

The question is often asked, is reality television harmless fun or is it some sinister new way to exploit both participants and viewers by appealing to our basest nature? Today that question is harder to answer as a new group of reality shows emerge, concepts actually based on altruism and a sense of community.

Extreme Make Over: Home Edition and Three Wishes have done a complete 180 on the idea behind many of the earlier, harsher shows and the good news is people are watching.

My view is that it is increasingly difficult to put reality television in a different category in relation to the other programming we see on our TV screens. There is nothing particularly problematic about reality television, what’s problematic are the particular uses of the genre - and in a TV universe that offers thousands of choices - the ultimate responsibility lies, of course with the consumer.

We will talk about the issues reality TV has raised with the movers and shakers in the industry as well as some of the nation’s top critics. Included in this chapter will be Phil Koeghan, Host, Amazing Race; Michael Fleiss, Producer The Bachelor etc; Michael Davies, Producer, Who Wants to be a Millionaire; Mark Burnett, Producer Survivor, & Apprentice; Natalka Znak, Producer, Temptation Island and Tom Foreman, Producer, Extreme Makeover Home Edition. We will also talk with Tom Shales, TV Critic for the Washington Post; Ken Auletta, author of Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way and Howard J. Blumenthal, author of
This Business of Television.

14. Fast Forward: The Road to Reality’s Future

The future of reality and non-fiction TV is hard to predict but on the Road to Reality we will try. We’ll speak to all of our interviewees about what they think will happen going forward and we suspect that they will tell us that a lot of the new shows will rely more and more on the technology of broad band.

As America, and much of the developed world, reaches critical mass of high-speed Internet connections, the greater the possibility for almost instant feedback from the audience. The long promised marriage of broadband and TV programming is nearly here and a whole new era of video on demand and interactivity is nearly upon us.

Imagine, for instance, that the voting on American Idol could happen in real time. Then, not only could the audience pick their favorite singer, but they could even dictate what song (among a choice of songs) that contestant would have to sing in the big finale. Or in the case of a live Big Brother episode, the audience might choose which challenges the housemates would have to do or which one should speak to the confession cam next. Besides that, people watching the shows via their computers (or their interactive TVs) could choose which camera to watch the action from… something that happens now on-line, but soon could happen as part of a “regular TV” viewing experience.

The creators and producers of reality shows are people that, by definition, think "outside the box" and many have explained that the format of reality programming only broadens the possibilities of various forms of new hybrid shows. What's more powerful in reality-based programming is that even though the situations are set up and manipulated to guarantee a result for content, we are still watching real people with real emotions in circumstances that create real drama. As long as we continue to be fascinated with the human condition, and have an appetite for entertainment, there will always be some evolving format of a reality show.

And what about the advertisers? What we've seen, and will see more and more, is the advent of new reality-based formats that will carry an advertiser’s brand product, integrating it directly into the story or content of the show (note Sears’ product placement involvement with Extreme Make Over: Home Improvement). This gives the advertiser participation in the content of the show (an important development in the Tivo era) and brings in extra Ad dollars to offset budgets that may otherwise keep a show from going into a production.

Nicholas Stein's CV

Nicholas Stein
12052 Laurel Terrace
Studio City, CA 91604
818-769-3824 /cell 818-281-3194
nicholasastein@yahoo.com

Series Producer
Anatomy of a Natural Disaster
National Geographic Channel
Hearst Entertainment. 2005

Senior Story Editor/Post Production
Love on the Rocks
Discovery Health
Fremantle Media. 2005

Senior Producer Post Production
Untold Stories of the ER
TLC
GRB Entertainment. 2005

Series Producer
Monster Nation
Discovery Channel.
40-hour magazine/reality hybrid series
Original Prods. 2004-2005

Supervising Producer/Executive in Charge of Production.
Mega-Tech, RV Crazy (Travel Channel), USC Medical (Discovery Health),
Reel Homes, Space Pads (HGTV)
Mike Mathis Productions. 2003-2004

Senior Producer Post Production
Life Moments. A daily women’s show, 135 episodes.
NBC Syndication, Pie Town Productions. 2002-2003

Supervising Producer
Gorillas: Primal Contact (A&E), Magnificent Mansions, Travel Channel Secrets (Travel Channel), A Century of Food, Foods of the Bible (Food Network), Readers Digest Home Videos.
Greystone Communications 2000-2002

Creator/Co-Executive Producer (w/ Peter Gabriel and Mandalay Media Arts)
Songs Under a Big Sky. A World Music HD Special
National Geographic TV/National Geographic Explorer International. 2000

Producer
Adventures in Time: The National Geographic Millennium Special.
National Geographic Television.
A Special 2-hour Event on NBC. 1999

Vice President Development
Secrets of the Internet (Discovery), Chariots of the Gods (ABC), Animals on the Move (Disney Channel), Unbelievable Sports (ESPN), Fort Knox, Under NY, Groundbreakers (Discovery)
ABC/Kane Prods. 1995-1999

Creator/Producer
Frankenstein: The Untold Story with Sir David Frost (ABC)
Secrets of the Internet (Discovery Channel)
ABC/Kane Prods. 1996-1997

Creator/Series Producer
Amazing Games
ESPN - 26 shows/24 countries/5 seasons.
ABC/Kane Prods. 1989-1995

Story/ Field Producer
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow with Maria Shriver.
NBC News with Cosgrove/Meurer Productions1989

Senior Field Producer
Eye on LA, Above and Below
Travel Show from Greece, Argentina, Borneo, Hong Kong and England.
KABC 1986-1989

Producer/Writer
The Smithsonian Institute: America’s Time Machine.
Emmy award.
KABC, Syndicated. 1986

Editor
Scared Straight 10 Years Later, The Unknown Soldier with Jason Robards
Syndicated
Arnold Shapiro Prods. 1986

Field Producer /Editor
Return to Iwo Jima with Ed McMahon
Syndicated
Arnold Shapiro Prods. 1985

Producer
National Geographic Explorer.
Seven television films including the pilot.
WTBS 1984-1987

Producer/Writer/Editor
On Television: The Violence Factor with Edwin Newman.
PBS 1983-1984

Post Production Supervisor/Post Producer/Writer
Entertainment Tonight.
Paramount Television Syndicated 1982-1983

Editor/Writer
Real People
NBC
George Schlatter Productions. 1979-1982