Yahoo News Why conflict in reality TV is OVER
Is it just me, or do you need a lie down in a dark room after watching an episode of Celebrity Big Brother? Or a scrub-down in a shower after watching 15 minutes of Make or Break?
After years and years of reality TV shows being filled with arguments, punch-ups and mean-spiritedness, I've got conflict fatigue. That's why a show that feels even slightly wholesome in comparison fills me with joy.
Reality TV has always featured conflict. The first few series of Big Brother had plenty of it, from Nasty Nick being rumbled to Jade Goody causing argument after argument. But generally speaking, by the end of the series, everyone got along and it was quite pleasant to watch as a viewer.
Fight makes right
But then, it all changed with Big Brother 4 in 2003. Channel 4 promoted the series as 'Back to Basics', following various experimental twists in the year before, such as the Rich vs Poor house divide.
They filled the house with mostly "normal", pleasant people, and there was almost zero conflict. The nicest man on the planet, Cameron Stout, was voted the winner, and it was all in all a bit of a snorefest. Average viewers for the series dropped from 5.8 million in 2002 to 4.6m in 2003.
Something had to be done, and so for Big Brother 5, they went in completely the opposite direction. The opening night saw a complete revamp. Jason entered wearing just a thong, activist Kitten was already provoking havoc, and they had clearly gone out of their way to put in larger-than-life characters with totally opposing viewpoints.
It led to the infamous "Fight Night", where one housemate (Emma Greenwood) had to be segregated from the rest of the housemates, and worried viewers even called the police. As shocking as it was, it worked. Viewer numbers went up, and ever since, reality TV shows of all kinds have made sure to amp up the arguments.
Of course, all this nasty conflict wasn't just Big Brother's fault. It could be traced back to Anne Robinson being horrible to everyone on The Weakest Link, or to judges like Nigel Lythgoe, Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell being hostile to contestants on Popstars and Pop Idol. Being mean was a ratings winner. In the age before Twitter, offence and complaints were only heard via Points of View or Ofcom.
An alternative reality
Fast forward to 2017, and aren't we over the whole conflict thing? Sure, shows like Celebrity Big Brother need moments of it, but do we need constant arguments and fallouts to keep us interested?
Every now and then, a selection of contestants or celebrities will just... get on. And, providing that they're funny, they can still create genuinely entertaining television with hardly any difficult scenes.
Last year's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! is a perfect example. Won by Scarlett Moffatt, it was a series with constant laughter, banter and hilarious gags (definitely helped by Ant and Dec mucking about as hosts), and crucially, it proved a big hit with viewers. Its average ratings were 10.42 million, the highest since 2013, which was also one of the more playful series, won by Kian Egan.
The year before, it averaged 9.86m, nearly a whole million less than 2016. Sure, it helps to have a particularly entertaining bunch of celebrities, but that year also featured Lady Colin Campbell. Entertaining? Absolutely. But she also caused row after row after row.
As for Celebrity Big Brother, the highest-rated final of the Channel 5 era was the one in which Jim Davidson won with 3.7m. On paper, that may sound terrifying to some people, but it just so happened to be a year where most of the housemates got on and it was easily the funniest series in recent memory, thanks to likes of Lee Ryan, Lionel Blair and Ollie Locke.
Last summer's finale only brought in 2.1m. Who won that series? Stephen Bear. He was the show's villain and it wasn't a pleasant watch. While January 2017's series, featuring constant feuds with Kim Woodburn, Jedward and the rest were entertaining at times, it only had a slight bump in the ratings with 2.5m tuning in for the finale.
As for the current series, ratings are stuck around the 2m mark, with its launch night one of the lowest yet at just 2.1m. So far, it's featured rant after rant, argument after argument, and people generally being dicks to each other. As opposed to...
Love Island! It seems many people were shocked at how popular the ITV2 show got this year, with it beating all other competition on a regular basis in the ratings, and even getting mentions on BBC Radio 4 and by Jeremy Corbyn. Why, you may ask? Because it was nice.
Sure, there were a decent number of rows. But that's why it was so good, it was a fair amount. It wasn't the main focus of the show. Most of the arguments were between the couples themselves rather than full-on brawls, and overall it was a show featuring hilariously entertaining and funny people, all having a damned good time.
By the final week it was one of the most lovely, sunny shows we'd ever seen. Especially when compared to the drudge of Big Brother on the other side.
Just look at the biggest show on television right now: The Great British Bake Off. Is it any wonder it's so popular? The closest thing we've had to conflict on that show was when someone accidentally took a cake out of a freezer. First Dates? Mostly lovely. Strictly? The ultimate wholesome show.
We're moving on from conflict. It's a scary and messed-up world as it is, and we seem to hear about one atrocity after another every single day. Why would we then want to watch an hour of bickering and bullying? You can get all that on the news.
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