Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox Television.
The term ‘trash culture’ entered into common usage in the West in the Eighties when linear television reached its first peak. Actually, though, this culture has existed for at least as long as linear television has been around and beyond. ‘Trash culture’ describes a voyeuristic view of lower-class people whose lives keep the viewer captivated. In this sense, trash culture is a validation of a middle-class voyeurism that approaches popular culture as yet another object to be consumed. For a long time, trash culture was seen as something bad in society. But over time, its image changed. Groups of people and their stories gained visibility on trash TV. The public stage is an opportunity for people to capitalise on and which they can utilise. Thus, today, not just people from a lower social background appear on our screens; people from the upper classes also want a slice of the cake. On television, reality TV began as talk shows.
Images courtesy of Bunim/Murray Productions and Ryan Seacrest Productions.
1947 The show Meet the Press started on NBC on 6 November 1947, and is considered the longest-running television series ever.
1951 The first talk show as we know it today, The Joe Franklin Show, ran for 42 years until 1993. Back then, US talk shows essentially focussed on entertaining conversations with celebrities. Joe Franklin’s guests included superstars like Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, the Beastie Boys, Yoko Ono, John F. Kennedy, and more.
1960 A second phase began in the mid-Sixties when a more factual interview style and audience participation emerged as new elements of the talk show.
1964 The Les Crane Show, a network talk show that aired on ABC as part of its late-night schedule, was one of the first talk shows to follow the current format. Host Les Crane would bring on controversial and regular guests, interview them in an aggressive style, and take questions from the audience. Crane was the first to interview an openly gay man on air, and he frequently interviewed Black celebrities, folk singers, and other guests. Crane attempted to interview lesbian guests on one of his programmes but was turned down.
1973 PBS series An American Family showed a family going through a divorce. Unlike many later reality TV shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style.
1980 In the Eighties, two new talk show genres emerged: firstly, the ‘confessional talk show’ in which non-celebrity guests talk about socially taboo topics. Secondly, there is the ‘confrontational talk show’ in which a controversial topic is discussed in an unnecessarily heated atmosphere.
1986 The Oprah Winfrey Show was named after its presenter, Oprah Winfrey. It was by far the most successful talk show in the history of American television. It is, with 25 years and over 4,500 episodes, one of the longest-running talk shows in the United States. The show had up to 20 million viewers a day, and the last programme was broadcast in 2011.
Image courtesy of Harpo Productions.
1987 Geraldo was an American first-run syndicated talk show hosted by journalist Geraldo Rivera. Taped in New York City, the show ran for eleven seasons until 1998.
1988 On 3 November, Geraldo aired an episode featuring white supremacists, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, Black activists, and Jewish activists. The confrontation turned into a televised physical altercation. Audience members, several stage hands, and show host Rivera himself got involved. In the process, Rivera was struck in the face by a chair and wound up with a nasal fracture. This incident led to Newsweek‘s referring to this show as ‘trash TV’. The term was subsequently applied to tabloid talk shows at their most extreme.
1991 The series Nummer 28 aired on Dutch television. For this show, seven strangers (all first-year university students) were put together in a student house in Amsterdam, and their lives were documented for several months.
1992 One year later, the same concept was used by MTV in the new series, The Real World. This show is the longest-running programme in MTV history and is credited with launching the modern reality TV genre. Seven to eight young adults were picked to temporarily live in a new city together in one residence while being filmed non-stop.
2000 Reality TV was born. Shows such as Big Brother, Laguna Beach, and The Simple Life became worldwide hits and many reality TV stars had direct or indirect connections to people involved in TV production, most notably Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in The Simple Life.
2010 Reality TV became increasingly popular globally. New shows are still constantly being born that bring stars great fame, inspired by Kim Kardashian, who became a celebrity through her reality TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.