Television jumped on the faux ‘reality’ bandwagon in large part because its much cheaper than a sitcom, or dramatic series. The costs for writters alone is many times more than what it costs for a months worth of Survivor, for example.
I’ve never watched a reality show beyond the first season of The Apprentice. Once I realized that was about as ‘real’ as ‘The Matrix’ I didn’t bother with it again.
The daughter of friends is a model/aspiring actress. She auditioned for a reality show and got a part. There is no pay for the pilot. After the pilot was shot and reviewed, they told her she had too strong a Midwestern accent. Her various comments about Hollywood and the entertainment business were
very negative and she is continuing on with her business degree.
And don’t forget the strikes. One of the prime motivations for the first wave of reality shows was a writers guild strike that appeared imminent and would have started in late October (a long time ago, the year of the first Survivor). There was a big scramble of exec looking for shows you can put on that don’t need writers, that’s when they found reality TV which is immune to strikes by just about everybody in the industry except camera and sound guys and I don’t think they’ve ever actually gone on strike.