CBS Reality Bites: How Network Went From "Survivor" To "Greatest American Dog"

After early success in the reality realm with unscripted series like Survivor, CBS' latest offerings include failures like Kid Nation and Great American Dog. Now Ghen Maynard, the network's executive vice president for alternative programming, is taking the fall.

Maynard, who will segue into a first-look producing pact with CBS (nyse: CBS - news - people ) after stepping down from his current position late last week, is credited with convincing CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves to take a chance on the controversial Swedish concept Survivor some eight years ago. The series proved a ratings juggernaut for the network--28.2 million viewers tuned in for the first season--and pioneered the modern reality form and the product placement opportunities that came with it. Next came enduring hits The Amazing Race and Big Brother.

But recently, Maynard's name has been attached to a slew of less successful series, including Pirate Master (Mark Burnett's pirate-themed competition show ), Kid Nation (a highly controversial Lord of the Flies-style series ) and Greatest American Dog ( American Idol meets Big Brother--with canines). CBS declined to comment for this story.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[wolf58]

bottom line is this TV is crap
news is not news it is opinion and spin
do not trust your government
do not trust the media
do yourself a favor
turn off the boob tube
and read a good book
your brain will thank you

[drblack]

All that fake "reality" TV is garbage for morons. It is simply a way for networks to make more profit.
Just like the Music industry they are destroying their business for the long term.

[protagonia]

More fake truth to go along side the garbage shoveled us from the MSM.

[gloriar8]

I see the clips from time to time. Yuk! I like dogs, but not like they are human beings. Where I live people walk their dogs with plastic bags to p.u. their crap. When I had a child, there was always a goal for that child to take himself to the bathroom one day. Yeaaa. This country is going the way of the egyptians and their worship of cats. We had dogs as kids and we had a yard for them to run and explore in and even to get away from us sometimes. I thought the show was a terrible idea and clips of the contestants was quite disturbing.

[JScott]

Only show I watch on CBS is 60 min. and only if it's not repeats, I am always sure to watch the first few minutes to find out what the stories are, if they are not interesting, I switch the channel, and I seldom watch the last 15 minutes of Andy Rooney whining, the letters at the end when they do them are good tho-hmmm that's more like 40 minutes the other 20 are crap.

[rbspickles]

TV in general sux! Now I just ask my fience which commercial channel does he want to watch tonight. The one with the drug commercials, the AARP commercials or the car commercials. He's sorta attached to the drug commercials so we end up watching those. It's nice to know which drugs will kill you faster than the others.

[MPeter]

Let them go to the dogs. They have dumbed down our values and the meaning responsible programming.

[JaseAllen]

Oh, come on. We all know what happened. Nearly all TV execs are afraid of "different". Once they find a winning formula they latch on and ride it for every thing it's worth and /then/ some. Hell, half of the popular reality shows aren't even original to this country, they're purchased from foreign TV networks. Game shows are as well.

[Zaphod67]

The rise of Reality TV may very well have caused the death of television as a format. It certainly is why I stopped watching. I understand shows have gotten better fairly recently but the habit of turning it on has disappeared because of the several years of painfully bad programming (yes, this includes basic cable). I couldn't afford the upgrade to HBO for awhile, nor did I want the extra expense. Ultimately, I'm happier with the internet for news, an extensive DVD library & book library for entertainment, and CD or radio for background noise while I'm doing chores. My TV is off for months at a time, except for when I happen to remember to watch Daily Show & Colbert Report now that the cable is part of my high speed internet & phone.

[mulegino]

So, reality t.v. went from manure to fecal matter. What exactly is the point?

[Kally]

Network, except for a few shows does anybody above the age of 12 watch it anymore. Most of the shows seems to be written by 10 year olds, except for the stupid reality shows.

Gee I got an idea how about a bunch of kids sitting around in a network station and trying to best the other in stupid. No wonder people are deserting network for cable. At least cable knows how to write intelligent shows.

And another thing the networks do is, if the get a good show they move it from place to place to try to knock off the other network shows, viewers get sick of trying to figure out where their favorite is and switch to cable, again.

[scottarino]

Seems like the perfect next step in crap programming.