Reality TV is Rigged

Keith Hollihan lives downstairs from an apartment that was featured on an episode of The Apprentice. The show's contestants were challenged by Trump to renovate and rent the apartment (as well as other ones throughout the city) for the highest price possible. Hollihan writes about how after the show was done, he got to know the new renter and discovered from her that the rental price she had agreed to on tv was a sham. It was far higher than the price she actually paid. In other words, the outcome of that episode was rigged. And if that episode was rigged, one can assume that other episodes of The Apprentice are also rigged. In which case, are Survivor and all the other Reality TV shows also faked?

Entertainment

Posted on Wed Apr 14, 2004



Comments

I've heard rumours concerning Survivor being
faked.

e.g. They make them do more than one run
through the challenges so they can get
all the camera angles they want.

But I have no idea how to verify how true these
rumours are (or rather, I just don't have that kind
of time). Apparently, there's a particular
maze challenge where you can tell they ran it
more than once, because a wall would have been
in the way of the shot.
Posted by Kap  on  Wed Apr 14, 2004  at  01:08 PM
With Survivor, they do sometimes run the challenges multiple times but just for camera shots (ex. so they can get overhead shots without the on-the-ground cameramen in the shot)... but the main challenge is run once and in a legit fashion.

I don't think the game itself is rigged. They use alot of editing for the tv show, true, but the game itself is played by the players.
Posted by Carl  on  Wed Apr 14, 2004  at  02:39 PM
Why is this suprising? There are companies that specalize in fake callers for radio shows, or ones that fake videos for 'home video' shows. Why is it suprising that 'reality' tv is not quite reality?
Posted by Bob S. Yunkle  on  Thu Apr 15, 2004  at  03:54 AM
Let's face the reality of reality TV shows folks. They are first and foremost television, and therefore, popular entertainment. Reality TV is a genre not a promise or commitment made by the production companies. If the concept in production does not meet expectations, then we can expect as much fiction in reality TV as you
Posted by Frank McWilliams  on  Thu Apr 15, 2004  at  09:16 AM
Let's face it, When Hollywodd spelled reality the didn't include the letters r-e-a and l. It's been apparent that these setups were rigged from the beginning
Posted by J  on  Thu Apr 15, 2004  at  02:03 PM
They found scripts for survivor and some other shows. It's just a sitcom with a new name.
Posted by gixie  on  Mon Nov 23, 2009  at  02:46 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.