This is a new reality that may rock the small screen
Sunday, July 3, 2005

By VIRGINIA ROHAN

Since "Survivor" struck gold in the summer of 2000, reality shows have been proliferating, in part because they're so much cheaper to produce than scripted programming.

When the Writers Guild of America, West, went public on June 20 with its industrywide campaign to organize reality TV writers, producers and editors, it officially uncorked Hollywood's worst-kept secret: "Unscripted" shows are anything but. "Story staffs" shape everything from dialogue to "character arcs" to story lines.

This is no big bombshell to most of us. We know that post-production wizards transform real people into heroes, villains and buffoons and that bachelors and bachelorettes could not possibly be ad-libbing those long, sappy proposals and rejections.

What may come as a shock, though, is just how staged these shows are. Though the word "writer" does not appear in the credits, the "story producers," "story editors" and "segment" or "field" producers who work on them have been coming forward recently with some fascinating details. Some talk about writing outlines, wading through hours of film in search of juicy story strains, and even creating "Frankenbites" by splicing together pieces of conversation into dialogue that's more dramatic, even if it doesn't always reflect what's actually being said.

"What's being marketed is the illusion that these things are taking place spontaneously," Daniel Petrie, WGAW president, said last week. "We don't want to spoil anybody's fun - we don't care, for example, if the storytellers of reality television wind up with the credit of 'writer' - but when people think about it, of course, these shows feature stories, characters, conflicts, suspense, humor ? and that doesn't happen by accident."

In Petrie's view, though, the industry's real dirty secret is that "reality TV is a 21st-century telecommunications industry sweatshop."

"It's just assumed that the storytellers will work all the time. We've heard stories about 14- to 20-hour days, with maybe one day off a week, and no overtime, no benefits," Petrie says, adding salary protections and residuals to the list of what's lacking. (The minimum guild rate for a staff writer on a 13-week prime-time scripted show is $3,477 per week, while published sources put the weekly take-home range for a field producer on a reality show at $1,600 to $2,500 a week.)

You may be thinking, it's a sad story, but what does it have to do with me?

Well, some of the WGAW's allegations have big implications for television viewers.

Since "Survivor" struck gold in the summer of 2000, reality shows have been proliferating, in part because they're so much cheaper to produce than scripted programming. Besides not having to pay big-star salaries, those conditions are what keep down the costs.

So, what will happen if WGAW's campaign succeeds? Would networks, looking to fill an hour of prime time, be more apt to choose a good drama over a cheesy reality show if the costs weren't so radically different?

As a non-fan of most reality series, I would hope so. But Petrie declines to make "value judgments" or even speculate about such things.

"Our focus is really protecting the people who work in this field. We really don't think that it would be right or practical to raise their [production] costs to such an extent that they can't do business the way they have been," he says. "We're not looking to put the writers we're trying to protect out of work."

WGAW is calling the campaign the most aggressive organizing effort since its founding.

On May 7, more than 500 people attended a meeting at the WGA theater in Beverly Hills. Since then, the guild has received signed authorization cards from nearly 1,000 writers, producers and editors - a majority of those who work in reality television - who are seeking WGAW representation. This enabled the guild to send all the major production companies a letter demanding recognition. Thus far, Petrie says, no one has agreed to negotiate.

Nor does anyone seem eager to discuss the matter with the media. In writing this column, I was not able to get a comment from famed reality producer Mark Burnett, nor from any of the six major broadcast networks. Some of them referred me to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents more than 350 production companies and studios, but the AMPTP did not get back to me by deadline either. In other published pieces, however, its president, J. Nicholas Counter, said the issue was complex, because, for one, the reality genre is so diverse, ranging from low-budget cable projects to ratings blockbusters like "American Idol," that it would be impossible to come up with across-the-board standards. He suggested it should be handled on a production-by-production basis. That's the approach the Directors Guild of America has successfully used to reach agreements with 35 reality series in the past year.

Petrie says the guild would not be seeking parity with the pay that writers on scripted shows now get, because the work is different, but perhaps something more in line with writers on, say, game shows and comedy variety shows.

He says calling for a strike is a "last resort," but a possibility. "The first step has been going public with our campaign. ... We have the possibility of certain lawsuits for violation of overtime," he says.

Part of the problem is that this genre was initially thought to be a passing fad.

"It's clear now to all of us that this is going to be a permanent part of the entertainment industry, but we were definitely asleep at the switch in terms of covering it," Petrie says.

Back then, none of us realized unscripted shows were this far from reality.