Popular Reality TV

The Bachelor spoiler Steve Carbone, aka Reality Steve, has been sued by NZK Productions and Alternative Television, Inc., who want an injunction and damages of at least $75,000 for both his leaked information (which is often accurate but sometimes not ) and for actively soliciting and offering to pay contestants for that information. He has, in the past, bragged about spoiling the show , once saying he’d “just continue to piss on their franchise by giving away spoilers.” The Hollywood Reporter reports that he being sued “for intentional interference with contractual relations and unfair competition” and “is accused of obtaining confidential information about the Bachelor series by contacting and soliciting information from participants, cast, crew, and other employees of the series.” More significantly, I think, is that they’re accusing him of both encouraging people to breach their contracts and offering to pay them for information. The lawsuit says he sent this in a Facebook messag...

X Factor »     by Andy Dehnart / December 6, 2011, 11:05 AM The X Factor host Steve Jones says that his barking hosting and weird demeanor is to blame on producers who feed him directions via an earpiece. When the Fox competition started, I really liked him as a host, primarily because he was the anti-Ryan Seacrest, never making it about himself. I also appreciated how he policed the judging panel, and wouldn’t just let, say, Paula Abdul blabber on forever. But as the season unfolded, that turned into an oddly robotic, dictatorial host who just barks orders and seems unaware that he’s often disrupting reality as it unfolds. Also, he’s not good at asking the contestants questions, usually because he acts like interviews are something to check off once a contestant says a few words. But a large part of that is the fault of the show’s producers, Steve said, because he’s a robo-host Appearing on Ellen DeGeneres’ show , on which he took off his shirt to try on a deep V shirt Ellen gave h...

Magical Elves, the creators and producers of Top Chef, have sued the Texas attorney general to prevent the release of information in documents from the Governor Rick Perry’s office related to the $400,000 Texas paid for product placement in the new season. Today, The Dallas Observer reports on the progress of its requests for documents detailing what the money will be used for, and describes what happened: “…the governor’s office asked the Attorney General’s Office to first decide whether the records should be released. (Certain proprietary information is exempted from the state’s public record laws.) Despite pleas from Magical Elves, on September 21 the Attorney General’s Office ruled that, yes, whatever the governor’s office dug up belongs to the people. Perry’s office ‘may not withhold any of the submitted information.’ [Now,]…Magical Elves has sued the attorney general, hoping to stop the governor’s office from turning over some amount of information regarding its arrangement wi...

X Factor »     by Andy Dehnart / September 16, 2011, 7:38 AM The seemingly endless hype leading up to next Wednesday’s premiere of Fox’s X Factor continued this week as the show had its formal premiere in Hollywood on Wednesday, leading to a new round of press coverage. With Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul reuniting in a singing talent competition that structurally is much more familiar (it’s American Idol meets America’s Got Talent ) than game-changing (NBC’s The Voice took the format further than this show will), the challenge is differentiating it so it doesn’t just seem like Idol three years ago. But even Simon Cowell has trouble explaining what’s different about his new show and his old show. Here’s what he, the show’s producer, and a Fox network executive all told USA TODAY is different about the new series. Simon Cowell: “I think you’ve just got to discover it for yourself, because it’s very difficult for me to put into words why it is different. In a broader sense, it is what ...

Feed watchers are incensed that a Big Brother houseguest may be receiving help in the game from Diary Room producers who the houseguest refers to be name, and are angrily tweeting about that to executive producer Allison Grodner, along with the usual assortment of bizarre conspiracy theories and otherwise irrational nonsense. We’ve seen how extremely personal and familiar producers can be with the houseguests when they think they are talking in private, but I mostly see that as a strategy—perhaps unethical—to get the cast members to feel comfortable talking. And I’m not sure how much we can trust what the houseguests say about what the Diary Room producers told them, because they could either be lying or just repeating back what they heard/wanted to hear instead of what was said. In addition, it’s a good producer’s job to ask questions, though not in a way that would suggest new strategy or provide information that contestants wouldn’t otherwise have, but the process of asking quest...

The production company that has been running the day-to-day production on The Biggest Loser is not producing the 12th season, which began production yesterday. However, its other two production companies, Reveille and 25/7 Productions, are still on board. The show is making major changes in addition to its trainer change-up. Deadline reports that J.D. Roth and Todd Nelson’s 3 Ball Productions “has been suspended from the show”; their company “was brought in by Reveille and 25/7 at the very beginning to run physical production on the series created by Reveille’s Ben Silverman and Mark Koops and 25/7’s Dave Broome.” Reveille told Deadline in a statement, “We can confirm that 3 Ball Prods. are not serving as active producers on The Biggest Loser for the time being. Reveille will be assuming all production responsibilities for the long running franchise, with 25/7 Productions also continuing to serve as executive producers.” Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva offers two theories as to why this ...

After Monday night’s shocking! most amazing ever! exit from The Bachelorette, when Bentley lied to Ashley about why he was leaving and callously talked behind her back , Chris Harrison is defending the shows’ producers decision to not clue Ashley in to Bentley’s lying. Chris told TV Guide , “I’m catching heat and the producers are catching heat, but the only way we could have told her everything about Bentley was to completely affect her journey. What line do we not want to cross? Then it really opens up Pandora’s box and where to we stop the line? Do I tell her a snide comment that J.P. just made or ‘Oh I heard William said something about you too’? Why would she even date these guys when she could just go to the producers and watch the tapes and see how they act. It completely undermines everything we’ve been about for the entire show. I know it’s a sketchy grey area, but that’s the line we’ve drawn and we’ve stuck to it.” First, the slippery slope argument is pretty much bullshit (...

Phillip Sheppard’s accusations of racism on Survivor Redemption Island that turned into a fascinating Tribal Council discussion about race freaked out other cast members enough that they went to producers. “We were really scared for our safety…Every day got worse with him,” evicted cast member Julie Wolfe ">told E!’s Drusilla Moorhouse . She said they confronted producers. “We actually did, really. We were really concerned for our safety after that racial fight, because there was that tension, and it came out of the craziness. All the threats, they felt real. We kinda slept with one eye open—we never did really sleep, but we had our eyes open looking for that guy.” However, Julie admits that it may have been unnecessary fear: “I laugh about it now. [But] it was a true concern.” The rest of the interview is a fascinating read ; perhaps most interestingly, Julie says her tribe would have voted Rob out first, too. That may be difficult to believe because Rob basically orchestrat...

« American Idol: Emma Henry Audition | Home | American Idol: Milwaukee Auditions! » January 27, 2011 07:00:51 by Paula_Kosowski A sneak peak of next week’s NASCAR group date on ABC’s The Bachelor has everyone talking as contestant Emily Maynard, whose NASCAR driver fiance died in a plane crash, is shown trying to keep it together. “Bachelor” host Chris Harrison confirms producers intentionally scheduled the NASCAR date to include Emily. Keep reading for more details on why Harrison says they wanted her to be there… The obvious connection between “The Bachelor’s” NASCAR date theme next week and Emily’s past has left a lot of viewers speculating producers planned it to capture some drama for the show. According to Reality TV World, Chris Harrison admits producers intentionally scheduled “The Bachelor” NASCAR group date with Emily in mind. Harrison tells TV Guide, “We have to force the issue because we have such a time constraint. It puts Brad on the spot, puts Emily on the spot, like yo...

A&E »     by Andy Dehnart / January 7, 2011, 11:22 AM A&E has ordered another series focusing on addicts: Relapse , which focuses on coaches who work with addicts to help them through relapses. It’s produced by Intervention ’s producers but isn’t a spin-off, though it certainly is thematically related to that show and to Hoarders , which also focuses on mentally ill people getting help. In its announcement, the network said that “[e]ach episode of ‘Relapse’ follows two sober coaches over the course of a week as they work one-on-one with addicts to get them through painful withdrawal symptoms, face personal challenges and reconnect with family and friends who have lost hope”; those coaches “coaches are often a last resort for addicts who have tried other methods to get sober but have failed.” The show will debut in the second quarter of this year. View the original article here

« Tabatha’s Salon Takeover: Tabatha Coffey on the Phun Sisters’ Salon | Home | The Bachelorette: Jesse Csincsak and Ann Lueders’ Favorite Baby Shower Gift » December 19, 2010 12:00:20 by Shayla Perry It seems as though the producers of American Idol are hoping to create an artist that will appeal more to pop audiences in Season 10 of the hit FOX reality show . In addition to the other big changes being made this year, like their superstar judges, AI has decided to go in a different direction when it comes to the mentors they choose to work with contestants. So who did the American Idol producers tap to work with the 60 Idol contestants in Las Vegas? If you’re not a fan of pop music, you probably won’t be that familiar with these successful producers, assembled by Idol’s new in-house mentor, Jimmy Iovine of Universal Music Group (UMG will also release the Idol winner’s first album), but there’s no doubt that you’ve heard of at least one or two of the superstar artists that they’ve...