Generic Hybridity in Reality TV
... This is especially true of the media, the only way genres can survive without become to staid, or even generic is to become generic hybrids, in order to somehow extend and alter the genre. The perfect example of this is Reality TV. Reality Tv without realising it has changed over the last 40 years. ... When Reality TV first came to the publics attention, was back in the 70’s when the BBC started it’s Open Door Slot, whereby they would train volunteers over the course of 6 months with a camera, and then let them go off with the camera for another 6 months to give the public an insight into their lives. ... After the Open doors slot, the next project from the BBC based on public access was that of ‘Video Diaries’ which, along with the Open Door slot, prefigured the codes and conventions that were to be used to create ‘Video Nation’ After these original experiments in Public Access Television, or as it would soon become ‘Reality TV’ the Video Nation experiment came into being Video Nation, was the first true Public Access programme, it gave the public, the ability to easily record their movements, and even do ad hoc commentaries to camera, due to the fact that the advancement in technology, meant that good high quality recording and editing facilities were easily available and to a certain extent ‘affordable’. Video Nation carried on for many years, until it was cancelled in the late 90’s as Reality TV moved on, and the BBC despite being a Public Service Broadcaster, decided to stop Video Nation. ... However although this really stems from the true genre of ‘Reality TV’, the genre itself has progressed due to hybridity. The first instances of hybridity to extend the genre, came from such shows as Airport, when Docu-soaps’s came into existence. The show was developed by BBC Producers it was designed to cross the genres of documentary, in terms of it’s basis in reality, yet adding the continuation of soap by creating ‘characters’ out of the people that they were filming and following them through the series, this led to the prolific rise of Jeremy Spake who worked for Aeroflot to a temporary status of stardom, unfortunately his ‘fame’ was not very long lived, leading him to a career in advertising ‘euronics’ centres.