Reality Check

Hosted by comedian Tom Ballard, Reality Check is a weekly half-hour of sharp, cracking panel discussion in which no-one gets voted off at the end, no-one plays the pantomime villain and there’s nothing to be gained by crying for the camera. Having said that, if our guests want to cry, that’s up to them.

Drawing on the wisdom and wit of both the professionals who make these shows and the people who appear on them, Reality Check will dissect the week in Reality TV, both home and abroad, share war stories, and give us the down low on what really goes into making Reality TV. After a decade-plus of worldwide Reality shows there is a mountain of fun to mine and a million ideas and issues to discuss: just how important is a back story? What is ‘Frankenbite’ editing? When does a ‘journey’ begin? How do you cast a bachelor? And what happens when things go horribly wrong? Australians might think we invented MasterChef, but we’re only one of 41 global copies.

There are 56 different versions of Got Talent out there, 49 international Big Brother houses and 48 versions of Survivor. And with 42 countries pumping out X-Factor… that’s a lot of singers murdering ‘I Will Always Love You’.

In Sweden, is MasterChef really called Masterkock? Who is Holland’s racist X-Factor judge? Why does every country in the world seem to have a toothless old guy who’s taught his parrot to sing opera? Why is Reality TV the most-watched and most popular form of entertainment on the planet, how has it changed the television landscape, and what can we learn about ourselves from these shows