This is a good question juellie. For me personally I started watching reality shows on cable/satellite when the networks went on strike. I believe that was about 3 years ago. Network television turned to crap and then they cancelled worthy shows like "Boston Legal" and several others that I followed for years. I started watching A&E, Bravo, TLC, Discovery etc., and I was really fascinated with shows like "Ice Road Truckers", "Black Gold" and "Deadliest Catch". I learned something as well as being able to see the human side of those kinds of jobs. Yes, I have watched and enjoyed reality shows on Bravo, A&E, The Food Network and others and I guess I find them enjoyable and some like reading a trashy summer novel. LOL

Sometimes its fun being "a fly on the wall".

Susan

Some folks, I think, like to see what a train wreck other people's lives are. The worst one I watched was about Tanya Tucker. I could not believe how she 'supposedly' lives. I would be MORTIFIED to let my house be in the condition hers was shown .. dog poop everywhere (none of the dogs were housebroken), once her little girl even brought her pony indoors and they all thought it was normal. Unreal.

Anyway, I'm down to reality shows where people aren't supposedly being their normal selves ... Survivor, Amazing Race and Big Brother.

Well, there's one thing about many of those reality shows--including the "Clean House"/"Hoarders" type: They all make us feel better about our lives because the folks on TV are either fools focusing on stupid things (petty arguments) or seem to live "below" us with their household decisions.

I used to watch "Jon and Kate" but it was mostly to see those cutie-pie kids and whatever mischief there was that week. And to figure out whether they were going to successfully wrangle all those kids at whatever activity they were doing! (I have no children, so that wasn't a "comparison" show for me!)

Real Housewives should prob be promoted as a comedy, not reality show!

Real Housewives (but not Atlanta or DC), Jersey Couture (the dress-shop women), that auto repo show--yeah, I get sucked into those. Bachelor/Bachelorette, no way.

I'll join you in watching paint dry! I don't get it either.
I also don't get the Soap Opera attraction.

Seems hardly fair to compare Deadliest Catch with Jon & Kate. Deadliest Catch is much more of a documentary than the shows where people are looking to get donations. Guys actually die out there every year in search of crab. And it's not a documentary about someone trying to climb a building, tightrope walk or something else, these are men with a dangerous job with a far higher incidence of death than even police, firefighters, cab drivers or graveyard cashiers.

I can even watch American Chopper. Although they certainly play to the camera more, it is much more accurate portrayal of what happens in a machine shop than these other shows depict as their lives.

I've watched Big Brother a couple times. Boring. Won't watch Survivor - silly. I don't know who can actually say many of these shows qualify as "reality" TV. They're nothing more than tabloid. But then, many people sneak peeks at the tabloids too, whether they admit it or not!

I watch more of the reality shows than I used to due to the fact that I hated getting interested in a drama or sitcom only to see if canceled after a season.

I watch American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Dating in The Dark, Hell's Kitchen. Sometimes I'll watch The Biggest Loser and the Bachelor/Bachelorette. Rarely I watch Cake Boss, Top Model, AGT and the decorating competitions on HGTV.

I don't like Ice Truckers and the other shows that are too exciting/scary.

I guess Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune... even The Miss America Pageant would be considered reality shows?

Actors/Actresses getting paid to read a script. Not reality, very seldom do I watch daytime TV and even at night. Love public broadcasting, TLC etc.

Cynic--I think SuziQ is trying to establish that there's a wide spectrum of reality shows, that there are some better than others and truly worth watching--as she says, whereshe "learned something." She isn't implying that Deadliest Catch and Jon/Kate are the same quality. Nobody would ever think that.

I've watched Cake Boss, Undercover Boss, Black Gold and Policewomen of ______ County. I think that all "reality" shows are not really reality. They're staged and edited to appear more exciting than they probably are. Otherwise nobody would watch. Most people's "reality" lives are pretty boring.
Unfortuneately, these shows take jobs away from real actors who have alot of time and money invested in their craft.

IRL I get a lot of drama from people. But on TV I can watch the body language and be uninvolved at a personel level. I like watching nature shows. I feel people watching is watching the social interaction of a species.....also. :0)

If I want to watch a script.....I read a fiction book and it plays out in my head. :0)

I can say one good thing about some of the 'reality' shows.

........Most of them are better than Jerry Springer.

LIL

My favorite of all TV shows is a reality show..Amazing Race.

I admit the reality shows run the gamut according to taste, and even gender, sometimes. What gets me is if one network comes up with a premise for one, others,quickly comes out with their version. Cake baking/decorating is one that everyone seems to be jumping on the band wagon about. I guess this appeals to some, but I used to do cake decorating, and i never thought of it as a spectator sport. LOL. As for Survivor, amazing race, and other action reality shows, I do believe those are getting more and more scripted and arranged.

I agree with Lydia, several times I've been following a drama show just to have it canceled and you are left hanging. The networks don't give TV drama/comedy scripted shows time to develop and buildup interest. If they don't 'hit' in the first 15 minutes....chop, it's off the air.

I can't see any reality in the reality shows. I certainly don't call them entertainment!!! They do make watching paint dry very entertaining. :0) There is very little on tv that I enjoy any more.

The only reality show I really watched was Survivor for the first few years. Then I stopped, just got tired of the challenges, tribes, etc. I watch very little TV , mostly old TV shpws on TV Land and old movies on Turner Classic Movies. Just last night I watched Casablanca, one of the most romantic movies ever made.

I understand if other people like those shows about people raising a bazillion kids, but they are not for me.

We do enjoy talent shows like American Idol, America's Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance and so on.

I also like Project Runway and some of the cooking competitions, which I think of as talent shows.

We tried watching sociological experiments like Big Brother, Survivor and The Bachelor/Bachelorette, but I lost patience with the games they play.

Lydia mentioned Jeopardy!, and if that counts it's my fave.

Survivor and Big Brother for me. VOTE RACHEL OUT!!! lol

I watch some reality shows but certainly not kate or any of those housewife shows or batchelor things.......never.

My daughter explains it that it is like watching a train wreck occur.

I'm sure nobody cares, but all I watch is Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and sporting events like golf, football and basketball, I don't care for baseball.

Oakleyok I agree, PLEASE get Rachel out of there!! I'm glad Kristen left. She's got a mess to clean up back home.

dotmom wrote: I agree with Lydia, several times I've been following a drama show just to have it canceled and you are left hanging. The networks don't give TV drama/comedy scripted shows time to develop and buildup interest. If they don't 'hit' in the first 15 minutes....chop, it's off the air.
I feel your pain ladies, but I'll still watch new shows if the idea appeals to me. I'm lovin' Rozoli and Isles so far.
And you can add me to the list of rather watching paint dry over reality TV, but I'd prefer to watch things like the above mentioned new show or Bones. That's one awesome show.

"several times I've been following a drama show just to have it canceled and you are left hanging"

We watched CANE a few years ago, and just loved it to pieces, and it got cancelled. Jimmy Smits, Rita Morino and Hector Elizondo, about a wealthy Cuban family who owned a winery.

Did anyone else watch it?

I confess! I'm hopelessly addicted to many so-called reality shows.

Love: Top Chef, Survivor, Hell's Kitchen, Hoarders, House Hunters, Housewives of NJ (only because they live within 5 miles of me and I love to look for neighborhood sightings! hehe)

So many channels that there is always something for everyone.

Enjoy!
Dee

Justgotabme: You'll be happy to know that Rizzoli and Isles has been re-upped for a second season! YAY!

It really doesn't matter which shows people prefer to others, what matters is that the viewer is enjoying it. I remember when I was younger I'd feel sorry for people who didn't do the things I enjoyed and then, with years, came a little more wisdom. I now realize that one person can have as much enjoyment jumping out of a plane as the person watching the tv. show. It's all relative, there's no order of taste. What makes you happy is the important factor. I watch several reality shows and enjoy them completely. I also enjoy being in a museum for hours and hours, go figure.. It's what makes us unique.

Housewives of NJ (only because they live within 5 miles of me and I love to look for neighborhood sightings! hehe)

Deemarie~~~~~ ARE those women as nuts/clueless as they appear?
And IS Theresa/Joes house in foreclosurer or not?

I have to know.LOL

What attractd me to reality TV is the cast of characters.For me watching paint dry would be more enjoyable than watching overpaid, no talent actors on a TV series..They are so full of themselves can't stand that whole hollywood crowd. So reality TV suits me fine.

"Justgotabme: You'll be happy to know that Rizzoli and Isles has been re-upped for a second season! YAY!"
YAY is right Pammyfay