Development and production have been sluggish since the strikes, leaving desperate workers in the lurch: “All of a sudden the faucet just turned off.”
Veteran unscripted producer Wendy Miller was attending a gathering for women over 40 in unscripted television who are unemployed when she had the idea. Though the get-together could easily have turned maudlin, one woman brought levity to the proceedings by telling a story about working on a past show that cracked up the whole room. Miller envisioned a storytelling event, akin to The Moth, where reality TV workers could share outrageous career tales to a paying audience, thus raising money for needy peers: “All of us are unemployed and have no money, but there are people who are way worse. What if we use this as an opportunity to raise money for someone who’s really in dire straits?” Miller pitched the group.
The ensuing “Hollywood Horror Happy Hour” (tagline: “We’re All Broke. Let’s Laugh About It!”), which took place May 21, was just one sign of the times in the nonfiction TV business. Jobs are scarce, budgets are crunched, workers are considering jumping ship and executives seem terrified to take creative risks on untested concepts. This has come as a surprise to some insiders in the space. There was an initial expectation that the 2023 actors and writers strikes would accelerate activity in reality TV, which boomed during the 2007-08 writers strike, but many say the opposite occurred — even though nonfiction, being relatively cheap to produce and largely nonunion, is a natural stopgap for entertainment companies during work shutdowns.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/reality-tv-workers-production-slowdown-1235910373/