The world has had enough – time to say goodbye to reality TV

1.      The change in reality TV – Older programmes such as Beat the Clock (reality game show from the 1950s) and programmes such as Changing Rooms (1996). These programmes were meant to be fun, and helped other people to earn money and changes to their house etc.

2.      Big Brother – versions of big brother from all over the world being shown every year/every couple of years. Pointless reality TV shows that became so big. Could even view foreign Big Brother’s in the UK on sky TV.

3.      American Idol & The X Factor – American Idol topping the US ratings since 2000. The X Factor - Viewing figures of around 10 million were claimed for series 2 and 4, and 11 to 12 million for series 5.

4.      Im a celebrity get me out of here – Usually we are shown members of the public participating in these shows, but now we are watching celebrities that we have seen on other programs etc.

5.      Strictly Come Dancing – Celebrities out of their comfort zone, learning to dance & perform for votes to stay in the competition – Like I’m a celeb, it is different to watching regular people perform, which may attract people to the show more, but it is essentially the same as watching a regular person.

6.      Coach Trip, Escape To The Country, Holiday Showdown, Come Dine With Me – All exactly the same format – A group of people/families come together to partake in some reality TV show for fill up.

7.      Jeremy Kyle Show – Shown everyday on ITV 1 and regularly on ITV 2. Chat show where Jeremy Kyle has guests on who have some kind of problem in their relationship/family and he attempts to help solve them with DNA tests, lie detector tests and backstage help for the guests. Same kind of stories repeated.

8.      Laguna Beach, The Hills, Jersey Shore, and The Real Housewives of New York City/Orange County – All American reality TV shows. Based around a group of people’s lives, where cameras follow them around doing everyday things etc. They gain celebrity status from these things.

9.      TOWIE, Made in Chelsea, Geordie Shore and The Valleys – UK equivalent of The Hills and Jersey Shore etc. – Different type of reality to Big Brother and chat shows etc. as, like the American versions, they follow these peoples ‘real’ lives and make a TV show out of this.

’It is not the strongest that survive but those most responsive to change.’
How and why do media institutions continue to change?

Film institutions such as Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Pictures must continue to change gto ensure that they manage to survive in a ever changing industry. Some examples of changes that may need to be made in order to survive could be a change in marketing, User Generated Content and merchandise. Both Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Pictures have made these adaptations in order to remain top institutions.

A change in advertising has been a major adaptation for film institutions in order to surivive in their industry. For example, for the advertising of The Hunger Games (2012) Lionsgate have used a large amount of social networking sites, for example Yahoo Movies and YouTube, which have changed their website backgrounds to the hunger games advert at the time of the film being broadcast in order to attract new and wider audiences. YouTube gains around 2-3 billion hits a day, meaning that a large amount of people would have seen this advert, and it may have persuaded or reminded them to go and see this film. Yahoo Movies is a website which provides Movie News, trailers and reviews, and the audience of this website is obviously going to be film enthusiasts, therefore helping The Hunger Games to build up and wider audience to the film, as the people who use Yahoo Movies are more likely to have an open mind when it comes to the films they would like to view.

User Generated Content is a huge factor in huge box office films, especially when the film has a young adult audience. For example, the Twilight Saga has an overwhelming amount of User Generated Content on every platform, for example there are 22,500,000 results on Google under 'Twilight Fan Pages' and websites such as 'twilighters.org' allows fansto keep up to date with all Twilight news, Twilight history, and it also allows fans to interact
with each other to discuss their thoughts on the film etc. Another major example of User
Generated content could be fan made videos and trailers. One example of a user generated
video could be the Twilight bad lip reading. This video has over 15 million YouTube hits, and
even though it could be considered to be making a joke of the film, it is still promoting the
film and people who have seen no clips of the film at all, are now viewing parts of the film, 
and may be intrigued to watch the film or find out more about it. User Generated Content
 such as fan websites and trailers are one way that since technology has developed, so has
User Generated Content, as most people now have access to the internet, and when the some
of the audience turn into actual fans of the film, it is expected that they are able to type in
Twilight fan pages into Google, and be presented with a wide choice of things they are able to
join and view. This means that as the institution has made these adaptations, their audiences
and fanbases have become larger, as people can get more involved with other fans and different
aspects of the film, instead of just watching it.

Merchandise has also been a big adaptation for major film institutions. For Example, Harry Potter,
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, has captialised on merchandise. In London, there is a 'The
Making of Harry Potter' studio tour, there fans can see the sets and have a look at the actual costumes
worn in the film. An adult ticket is £28.00 and a child's ticket is £21.00, which over time will help
to make the institution a large sum of money by providing something else for the audience to
have a look at and take an interest in.
The Hunger Games has also released a lot of merchandise, especially costumes worn in the fim.
These are majorly popular with the fans, and at Halloween, on the offical The Hunger Games
Facebook page their was a competition to decide who had the best The Hunger Games costumes.
On Ebay, there are items such as the replica training top worn by the main character Katniss, which
are selling for over £100. These items are offical and are sold by the institution to help the film
make even more money than the $686,533,290 it made at the box office.

Most film institutions have made sure that you no longer have to purchase the actual DVD to access
the film. Most films are available on LoveFilm and NetFlix which may be more appealing to the changing
audience and it could be considered more accessible in the modern world. Making the film available
for download on iTunes is also an important adaptation to survive, as the majority of the audience
of these films will have an iTunes account and will like to be able to watch the film on their computers,
phones and iPods for easy viewing. By the institution making sure that their products are available
on these platforms, it ensures that everybody will pay to watch the film, and will still make the
institution money, without people having to buy the DVD.

Overall, media institutions have to change to ensure that they are providing the correct things
on the correct platforms that the audience want, because as technology is developed, the modern
audience will like to access and view films differently to the older audience.
In order to do this adaptations such as User Generated Content, making the film more
accessible on different platforms, and a change in advertising helps to ensure that media
institutions can survive.