A preview of the 2015 season of My Kitchen Rules
Not again? ... Australians are about to be saturated with more reality TV including shows like My Kitchen Rules. Source: Supplied
HOW much more reality television can Aussie viewers take? That is the question I'm asking myself after scoping the 2015 program line-ups for Channels 7, Nine and Ten.
All three commercial networks are set to swamp us with wall-to-wall reality shows whether we like it or not.
By my calculations viewers will have to endure in excess of 1500 hours of local reality programming throughout the year.
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That is more renovation, more cooking, more singing, and more dating than ever before.
Nine is rolling out another two series of The Block, starting with Triple Threat, featuring the return of Darren and Deanne Jolly. The show's producers will also unleash Renovation Rumble, with former stars of The Block and House Rules.
Do you love or loathe reality TV? Tell us below.
TV war ... three former teams on The Block Triple Threat including Deanne and Darren Jolly (far right). Source: Channel 9
Seven is doubling the output of House Rules with two series set for next year. Seven will also launch Restaurant Renovation, where teams will renovate and run their own eatery.
Seven will start the year with another series of My Kitchen Rules, with Pete Evans and Manu Feildel, boasting that it will have more instant restaurant rounds than ever before.
Cook off ... 2015 Victorian MKR contestants Ash Pollard and Camilla Counsel. Picture: Jake Nowakowski Source: News Corp Australia
Talent shows The Voice (Nine) and The X Factor (Seven) will also return despite big ratings drops last year.
Ten is betting big on reality with I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, filmed in South Africa and hosted by Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris, set to screen five nights a week.
I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! hosts Julia Morris and Chris Brown. Source: Supplied
Ten will also launch a local version of Shark Tank, where people pitch their inventions to business gurus.
Ten is making The Bachelorette as well as The Bachelor and is promising, or should that be threatening, to bring back The Biggest Loser.
MasterChef Australia will be back for a seventh season.
That is one heck of a lot of reality and most of it is just more of the same. Pretty much all of it will screen at 7.30pm so you will have to go to Foxtel, the ABC or SBS for an alternative.
Anyone hankering for a good meaty drama or decent comedy on Seven, Nine or Ten will have to wait until at least 8.30pm, and more probably 9pm, each night.
More reality TV ... Masterchef will return this year. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
How long will it be before viewers develop 'reality fatigue' and start switching off?
If 2014 is anything to go by, they already have. Most of the reality shows in the final third of last year were ratings flops. The Big Adventure, Big Brother, and Beauty and the Geek Australia all sank like stones.
The same thing is happening in America, where all the major reality shows are in a slump. American Idol has been cut back after dropping a whopping 27 per cent last season.
Former US ratings powerhouses Survivor and Dancing with the Stars are long in the tooth and cult hit Duck Dynasty has plunged.
Big budget Utopia, where contestants had to build a new society, was a dud, cancelled mid-season.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, all of the major US networks — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — have cut back on reality shows — from 20 to 13 hours per week in the space of three years.
Scripted dramas and comedies are the name of the game in America now.
Aussie TV networks seem determined to ignore the trend. You can count the number of exciting new local scripted commercial TV shows on one hand — The Peter Brock Story, Gallipoli, Winter, and The House of Hancock.
Gallipoli miniseries ... Tolly (Kodi Smit-McPhee) makes his way up the ridge, gun at the ready. Picture: Ben King Source: Supplied
Critics would accuse local networks of laziness or a lack of creativity but it is more complicated than that.
Aussie networks love reality shows because they can integrate so much product placement, on top of advertisements, into each episode. Money talks.
Reality shows are also more flexible than dramas and comedies. If a reality show is rating well, program chiefs can quickly order more episodes or extend run-times from 60 to 90 minutes because there is so much available footage.
The best reality shows also generate a lot of social media chatter. When The Bachelor's Blake Garvey switched girlfriends Twitter went into hyperdrive.
Love rat ... The Bachelor of 2014 Blake Garvey and girlfriend Louise Pillidge. Source: News Corp Australia
Reality shows are also more likely to be watched live by viewers. People will often record dramas and comedies for later binge viewing — something networks still don't fully know how to monetise.
So I get it — but that doesn't make me any happier with the outcome.
There was way too much reality TV on our screens in 2014 and the problem is set to get far worse in 2015.
The prospect of watching more nails hammered into walls, more meals being cooked and more roses being handed out has me reaching for the remote control — to turn the TV off.
I suspect plenty of other viewers will want to do the same. That's the reality.
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