The Summer Reality Died -- For Now
Blame the heat -- or networks' overheated appetite for reality series -- but this summer's non-scripted debuts have wilted badly, leaving audiences with a healthy buffet of repeats rather than original programming during the warm months.
The latest swoon came on Monday night, when ABC's "One Ocean View" made absolutely no waves with audiences, drawing only 3.5 million viewers to land it in third place for the night. But "Ocean View" -- a sort of "Real World" with older, more professional-minded, and less compelling personalities, set in the quiet vacation community of Fire Island, N.Y. -- was just the latest reality series to unfurl with barely a whimper.
Add to that the almost immediate cancellations of ABC's "The One'" and CBS's "Tuesday Night Book Club," as well as the lukewarm performance of NBC's "Treasure Hunters" and "America's Got Talent" -- despite the antics of David Hasselhoff -- and it's clear that audiences were reluctant to give this summer's trove of new reality shows a spin.
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