Reality Check

One of the lessons America’s summer fling with “Survivor” taught us is that imitation TV is getting old. Networks are notorious for filling their nightly lineups with formulated, assembly-line programs with all the same clean-looking actors and been-there-done-that script writing. Commercial television may as well come from McDonald’s for all the thought, care, and originality that goes into it. 

So “Survivor” -- an ad-libbed, rat-infested, non-predetermined island shoot --
understandably struck a chord with a format-weary audience. “Survivor” seemed new, raw, and fresh, partly because it wasn’t under the complete control of narrow-minded network suits, and didn’t feature the same familiar rotation of celebrities. These were real people doing real things.

The island element was important, too. The escapism, the adventure, the action. As “Big Brother” proved by its flop, it’s not enough to have unscripted TV if the result is just some whiny Gen-Xers lounging around complaining about their rocky relationships. It needs a little zest.

All of which would seem to describe a blueprint for the ideal television product – sports. It’s not scripted, it’s not predictable, it’s not celebrity-dependent. There’s plenty of action, and no one knows how it ends. 

The funny thing is how the trend in broadcasting sports on television is going just the opposite way – the more script, the more celebrity, the better.

The sitting duck here is, of course, NBC’s Olympic coverage. The past two weeks, the network taped action as it happened in non-prime time hours across the world in Sydney so that it could roll it up to a day later in prime time. Before much of the good stuff had aired, millions of Web surfers and radio listeners had learned the big story of the day, ensuring that all that was left for NBC to do was present the action as a mini-play. Even NBC had little qualms about taking this route – it reported results on NBC News as a promotion to watch later that night. The prime time broadcast was thus structured for storytelling, not sports action - with maximum background music, narration, and profile pieces.

Mercifully, come Sunday, we’re rid of NBC for another couple years until the Salt Lake City winter games. But the sad truth is that plenty of live televised coverage of sports is also in flight away from reality TV. Promotion of sports telecasts center primarily around controlled factors - celebrity and moral drama – not spontaneity of action. We’re not urged to watch sports to see what will happen, but to see what the networks think will happen – a big performance by the big star, sage leadership by a veteran coach, revenge by a former teammate. Meanwhile, the foundations of televised sport – that anything can happen, a split second could decide it – are downplayed. It’s all about storyline.

Take a close look at the promos trying to get us to watch sports. We’re never told just which two teams are playing, but always a star as well (“Bret Favre and the Packers take on Warren Sapp and the Buccaneers”). When the Patriots played the Jets on Monday Night Football earlier this month, ABC spent so much time pumping the game as a grudge match between various ex-Patriot and ex-Jet players and coaches who had switched sides, I don’t remember if they ever got around to the word “football.”

Never mind that the unknown special teams second-stringer may end up making the decisive play in the game, the refs may blow a huge call, or the game may go into sudden-death overtime. One of the most memorable plays in sports history, Franco Harris’ “immaculate reception,” was a deflected pass that landed in the hands of a player running the wrong route. 

The future of sports television, meanwhile, is clearly pro wrestling, as this spring’s debut of the WWF football league illustrates. Pro wrestling is pure soap opera, pure prompted performance, pure manufactured grudge match. Sports television seems to want to be more like it all the time.

So we sports TV viewers have to watch out for traces of anti-reality – the celebrity, the pseudo-drama, the over-packaging -- seeping into coverage of what should be all-natural sporting events. There is some hope: The networks noticed how many people liked “Survivor”’s style. If enough people tell them to put a little more “Survivor” into the game of the week and a little less “Touched By an Angel,” we’d all be a lot better off.

• Chimes Home Page
• Back to Index