Dissecting the factual viewer

Richard Kilborn is an academic with a particular interest in factual programming. He lectures at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and is the author of the books Staging the Real: Factual TV programming in the age of Big Brother (Manchester University Press, 2003) and Confronting Reality: An Introduction to Television Documentary (Manchester, 1997, with John Izod), among others.

Readers of realscreen need no persuading when it comes to the pulling power of the real. Factual entertainment - whether it comes in the shape of the latest reality show or is dressed up in more traditional documentary garb - has undoubtedly been one of television's success stories in the last couple of decades. Audiences can now be certain to find particular types of factual shows in strategic slots throughout the schedule. And this, of course, has meant that most of the shows we get to see nowadays are produced very much according to schedulers' demands.

If factual programming has proven to be one of the key weapons in the scheduler's armory, what is it about these shows that makes them so attractive from the audience's point of view? The first and most obvious point is that the factual genre encompasses a wide range of programs, all of which target their audience in slightly different ways. It's very much a case of different strokes for different folks. For those who favor action-packed drama with the thrill of police chases and the like, there are the shows belonging to the 'Accident and Emergency' category. Those looking for slower-paced, more dialog-centred entertainment will be drawn to the less hectic world of the docusoap. And those who get their kicks from following the antics of a motley group of cooped up individuals need look no further than the latest reality game show.

As with every other type of programming, each new factual format that hits our screens is seeking to impress on the strength of its 'Look at me - I'm different!' appeal. And differentiation is paramount. Should viewers feel producers are simply serving up cloned versions of old favorites and that they're being treated as so much audience fodder, they'll not be slow to express their displeasure. There were several examples of this in the late 1990s when broadcasters in the UK began to crowd their early evening schedules with docusoaps that were pale imitations of earlier hit shows like Airport and Driving School. Viewers quickly became disaffected and the docusoap genre began to lose its allure.

If producers are in one sense constantly having to reinvent the factual genre in order to maintain their position in an increasingly crowded TV marketplace, it's important to remind ourselves that there are still certain basic elements that constitute the essence of factual's appeal with viewers. Regardless of how each format is set up, almost all of these shows feature a number of real-life, flesh-and-blood individuals to whom viewers can easily relate. This provides a refreshing, and some would say salutary, contrast to the glossy artificiality that marks so much of today's television.