British tv taking over American tv

The media-about-the-media has been full of claims about British formats becoming more and more prevalent on US tv. It really cranked up during their writers' strike, where our cheap'n'cheerful reality formats filled up the hours usually screening sitcoms and dramas.

And now there's talk that even though these shows don't rate as well as a top-notch drama or hit sitcom, as they're a fraction of the price maybe they should keep running them. This doesn't impact British terrestrial tv too much, but means a shortage of product for places like Sky One or Living.

Anyway, the thing that most commentators miss is that US reality shows are almost always very different to ours. Seven big differences, in the inevitable list format, follow:-

1 MUSIC
If you've ever watched any American reality show, it's been cut together then scored by a composer, just like a drama, soundtrack swelling for emotional bits, comedy music for funny bits... all slightly ahead of the action so you know what to expect. It's very odd to us Brits - imagine Big Brother with the soundtrack from Desperate Housewives. Somehow a lot less... well, real.

2 EDITING
They use many more cut-in interviews with the contestant/participants than we do. US Big Brother seems to be almost entirely made from people talking to camera (to soppy music) - not in a diary room picking their nose to a fixed camera but in a lushly-lit interview studio.

3 CONTESTANTS
The first winner of Survivor was a big fat ugly old naked gay man. What reality show has ever been won by such a character in the UK?

4 FORMATS
US Big Brother dropped audience voting after series one. Every other edition in the world has it as an integral part. Americans just couldn't be arsed to ring up and vote for some reason. They can for American Idol but not to pick which twentysomething pretty girlie or boyboy wins this show. This change of format is common to most reality show imports, sometimes because of different laws - ie premium rate numbers and text/SMSs are illegal in some states meaning shows with that as a concept don't work nationally - and, incidentally, no nasty viewer-conning scandals for the USA.

This lack of voting formats is one of the reasons number 3 above can happen. If you look at the list of winners of such shows worldwide, they tend to reflect the majority of the voting audience in race and age.

5 PRESENTATION
Generally, much, much, MUCH glossier. Show an American audience E4's streaming BB coverage and they'd hoot with derisive laughter. The idea of cutting to bird song or shots of people sleeping or, shock, smoking isn't attractive at all to US producers or audiences.

Interestingly, the exception here is American Idol, which until recently looked far cheaper and shoddier than, say, UK X Factor. Maybe it's because we've been doing these shows a bit longer...?

6 EXTREMITY
The trouble with exporting our mainly harmless reality formats to the US is that their rapacious tv execs have taken things to a new level. If you've ever seen A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, you'll know what I mean. A transexual person picking from male or female potential partners. Or one with that rapper who wears a big clock round his neck picking what he charmingly calls "his bitch". The somewhat, er, hard-nosed vixens competing for these dubious honours normally end up fighting and bawling, their pixellated body parts falling out of their skimpy outfits.

There was even one where an adopted kid had to try and pick his real father out of a bunch of blokes (although even Fox cancelled it quickly). Or current gameshow Moment of Truth where people reveal if they've shagged their wife's sister for money. In front of their entire family... wife and sister, of course, sitting together in a nice two-shot.

7 PIXELLATION
Writing that above reminded me that swearing isn't allowed on US tv so their version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares mainly features 'Chef Ramsay' (as they call him - hey, he's a chef and let's make sure the viewers don't forget it) with a blurry mouth. They can't even bleep someone out and show the lips swearing. So Gordon's mushy features look even weirder with a blurry beige mess over his lips.

And, of course, we do it on their shows - but for different reasons. American Idol's pixellated Coke cups in front of Simon, Paula and The Other One. Some poor British editor has to sit and blur out that thousands of times over and over again. The dullest job in tv, perhaps.

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Still, at least the Americans can laugh at their reality shows. See http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=41804. Look, a hyperlink! It's like a proper blog or something!