It's amazing to see how far technology has come in just the last 100 years Television, which seems like an amenity we could have never been without,didn't begin in the US until 1939. By 1970, TVs were the primary information and entertainment medium in the US. At this time, the US owned 93 million of the 271 million television sets in the world. And as we progress through time, the more creative we get with the types and genres of shows we watch. Just recently a new fad has come into American pop culture known as reality based television. 

  Reality TV is typically defined as, non-fictional programming in which portrayal is presumed to present current, historical events or circumstances. The production itself must be a realistic account. Generally included in this category is news and public affairs programming, interviews, talk shows, entertainment, or news programming, documentaries, real world events, police or emergency worker drama, and live quiz shows. Typically docu-dramas, invented or composite characters, and dialogue are excluded from the reality TV category. For the sake of this project we will focus primarily on reality shows made within the last few years. 

  The emphasis of reality television is on intense emotionality, exaggeration and sensationalism. It has been said to be historically rooted in the "penny press" of the 1830’s the "dime novels" of the 1870's and the "yellow journalism" of the early 20th century. Such programming is typically driven by four common elements: profits, politics, education and entertainment. Although reality based programming is more popular than ever, the concept itself is not new. In 1973 PBS aired a documentary titled, "An American Family" in which filmmakers followed the Loud family in Santa Barbara for seven months.  Since then American audiences have been exposed to shows like, "America's funniest home videos," "Cops," "When good pets go bad," "Deadly car crashes" and just recently we have moved into more entertainment based, game show reality television. 

   MTV has produced the "Real World" for more than nine years, a show about "Seven strangers who are picked to live in a house, to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start being real." These types of shows seem to be a combination of documentary film, soap opera, serial drama and cinema. MTV did not radically change the form of this genre but adapted it to a particular audience that came to expect a certain style of programming, with quick edits and rock soundtracks. This is not the only reality endeavor MTV has concocted. They have also produced a spin off called "Road Rules" where five strangers have adventures and try to win prizes while traveling around in a mobile home. 

  In the past two years reality TV has exploded in popularity. But this new trend is most likely just the beginning. European television has been exploring reality TV for a few years longer than the US and US television is just starting to catch-up.  A number of popular American reality shows can be traced back to similar shows from Europe. "Who wants to be a millionaire" was taken from Great Britain, "Survivor" was taken from the Swedes, "Big Brother" was taken from Holland and "The Mole" from Belgium.