Reality TV shows tighten their belts

Published 8:21 pm Wednesday, April 8, 2009

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Here’s a new economic indicator: the diminishing level of glamour on Paris Hilton’s reality TV show.

Contestants in season two of “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” are living in a mansion that costs half as much as the home the show rented last season. Trips to New York and Tokyo are out this year, as the show’s production budget has been cut 10 percent.

With the recession eating into advertising revenue at TV networks, a popular solution has emerged — even cheaper reality TV.

Reality shows already were TV’s low-budget alternative. Producing one on a broadcast network can cost about $950,000 per episode, versus $1.7 million for a scripted drama, largely because reality shows don’t use expensive actors and writers. And advertisers like how reality TV can give them inexpensive air time if they give the production free stuff and services. Add it all up and a network can eke out a profit even if a reality show’s audience is fairly small.

So in this downturn, as Americans are clipping coupons, eating at home more and doing whatever it takes to cut their budgets, they can turn on their sets and find that TV is being frugal too. There are more reality TV shows, and less elegant ones at that.

For instance, unlike the cool $1 million available to the last contestant of CBS’s “Survivor,” the top queen of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” received a magazine photo spread, a role in two ad campaigns and $20,000.

“There’s just less money around,” said Michael Hirschorn, co-executive producer of the Paris Hilton show. “The economy’s a mess, so all of us have to work more efficiently.”

MTV, which plans to air the new Hilton show this summer, is filling more air time with new reality series rather than reruns. Even so, its programming costs are down 17 percent per half hour, said Tony DiSanto, head of programming at the Viacom Inc.-owned network.

One new show debuting next week on MTV, “College Life,” even cut out the director and camera operators by distributing $500 handheld video cameras to freshman and sophomore students in Madison, Wis.

“Safe to say, it’s probably 35 percent less expensive than a similar half hour of reality drama,” DiSanto said.

At broadcast networks like ABC, NBC, CBS and The CW, 32 new reality shows have been ordered, are in production or are being developed, according to David Lyle, the president of Fox Reality Channel, who keeps a running count. At the same time last year that number was 21.

Hilton, 28, knows that even a less fancy version of her show can be a big hit for her personal business.

“It’s a great platform for me, because I can show a lot of my products,” she said. “All the kids have my perfume. They’re all wearing the clothing line, they’re all wearing my shoe line, they’re all wearing my purse line, my belts, my accessories, Paris Hilton sunglasses. It’s kind of like having a free commercial.”