Why Bad TV Survives

It's hard to tell precisely when television executives found they could make a virtue of what audiences had already accepted: Television is bad entertainment. Those viewers gathered at dorm parties and in living rooms to watch shows like the new CBS "reality TV" sensation, "Survivor," are there to celebrate the program's sheer awfulness, to laugh at its badness, and you can believe that the network chiefs are laughing right along with them. This show might as well be called "Plan 9 From CBS." However, as host Jeff Probst probes for meaning as the islanders vote to send another of their number home, the core value of "Survivor" is that "television should be bad."

Even though "The Jerry Springer Show" and its ilk take the prize for sheer odiousness, the subtext of "Survivor" is worse. It lends a big-network, prime-time aura of respectability to the type of show that heretofore could only be found skulking around the syndication channels or the cable carriers. With "Survivor," CBS seems determined to jump in the mosh pit with Springer: "Pushes television to its limit," the show's ads proclaim. (If only they would promise us that this is the limit and it will never get worse!)

"WWF Smackdown!" and similar fare make no pretense of being anything other than noisy farce: Anyone can see through it. "Survivor" calls itself "reality programming," masquerading as a genuine situation with genuine folks-next-door. Of course, it's not: No one's going to fail to survive, and there's some controversy over whether the contestants are even uncomfortable, except when the camera is rolling. But "Survivor" seems at least related to reality. That gives it a hook power that pure stunts like the Springer show will never have.

So what message is "Survivor" sending us? Assume that bad TV is indeed harmless summer fun. Assume that the character-out votes are actual, not based on Q-ratings for popularity and staged by contractual agreement with the show's participants. That is, assume the "survivors" are really picking who leaves, and that each outcome really comes as a surprise to CBS. (This seems exceptionally unlikely. With tens of millions of dollars in advertising money at stake, a rational network would drop the characters that are Q-testing poorly and keep those who are testing well, to maximize viewer interest until the finale. In other words, if you seriously thought the woman in the bikini top was going to be sent home last night, you don't understand how ratings work.)

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