After a decadeslong boom, reality TV is hitting a low like when Snooki was arrested for public intoxication at the beach.

The industry is downsizing harder than a star on Extreme Weight Loss: The number of new unscripted shows in the US took a nosedive last year, falling 15%. That means it’s a third below its 2022 level, according to data from research firm Luminate reported by the New York Times.

Coming to terms: “Unscripted” is a broad category that encompasses all TV shows without a traditional script. But unscripted doesn’t mean unstructured: Cooking shows, home improvement shows, and even game shows all travel under the unscripted umbrella. Reality TV is a subset of unscripted that focuses on relationships and their baggage. It has a reputation for being heavily edited and even manipulated to maximize viewers’ emotional investment in it.

Both cable and streaming are slimming down their unscripted and reality offerings:

• Unscripted powerhouse networks like HGTV released episodes of only 35 shows in 2025, compared to 78 in 2019. Meanwhile, the Food Network produced just half as many shows as it did in 2019.
• Streaming platforms and linear TV combined ordered 31% fewer reality series in 2025 than the previous year.

Meanwhile, the shows that are being greenlit are produced on smaller budgets, leaving fewer jobs—not only for people who don’t mind having a drunken fight on camera, but also for production professionals.

Economic reality

Times have changed from when networks fell in love with reality shows for their ability to get everyone rooting for Kim to get her diamond ring back on a modest budget. While unscripted shows got a boost from a 2007 writers strike, which made reality TV’s (often) nonunionized casts and crews look more attractive to studios, the Hollywood strike of 2023 delivered no such windfall.

Industry consolidation left fewer studios as buyers of reality TV content. And the streaming wars of the late 2010s and early 2020s, during which platforms like Netflix and Hulu cranked up content production to win subscribers, have wound down in recent years. The ratings of once-iconic brands like The Bachelor and The Real Housewives are on the decline, even as their budgets have swelled.

But…audiences aren’t voting reality TV off the island entirely. Love Island USA was the most-watched original streaming show last year, with 18 billion minutes streamed on Peacock, according to Luminate.—SK

The number of reality TV series may have dropped in recent years, but that’s not because there’s a shortage of Kardashians. Instead, much of that drama and unpredictability has moved to different platforms or bled into other aspects of our lives.

Don’t forget to subscribe: It’s no secret that cable—the lifeblood of reality TV—is having connection issues. According to Business Insider and media advisory firm Madison and Wall:

• Nearly 90% of US households paid for a cable TV subscription in 2010.
• Now, that number is about 50%.

Meanwhile, YouTube accounts for nearly 13% of viewing time in the US, the New York Times reported, citing Nielsen data. A lot of that content is unscripted, like the videos put out by Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, who is basically a reality-TV/game-show host with more than 430 million YouTube subscribers (and who has successfully taken a show to Amazon Prime Video, too).

Living the stream

Livestreaming has also supplanted the more voyeuristic aspects of reality TV. And, like VH1’s run of reality shows in the 2000s, even celebrities are getting in on the action. Per Axios:

• Livestreaming platform Twitch has more than 21 million active streamers.
• Year over year, athlete and celebrity streams are up by nearly 20%.

Social studies: Social media and the influencer economy are carrying on the spirit of reality TV. Audiences used to watch strangers cook, lose weight, and find love on 30- or 60-minute episodes. Now, that’s five minutes on Instagram.

Politics has had a distinctly reality-TV flavor, too: Lawmakers have firmly joined in the influencer space, starting podcasts and getting major exposure through short, fiery clips, sufficiently Jersey Shore-ifying our social feeds. And, back in 2017, the New York Times reported that President Trump (himself a former reality TV star thanks to The Apprentice) instructed aides to think of each day as an episode of a TV show.—BC

Forget about who kissed who, or which housewife snubbed another at her philanthropy event. In the industry that pushes its stars to produce drama, there’s been no shortage of real-life crises this year.

The Bachelorette: Just three days before its March premiere, ABC parent company Disney made the unprecedented move to indefinitely postpone its much-hyped season starring Taylor Frankie Paul—a cast member on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives—after TMZ released a video appearing to show her throwing metal bar stools in 2023 at her then-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen (whom Paul has also accused of domestic violence), one of which seemed to strike her daughter and make the child cry. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives reportedly halted work on its fifth season amid an investigation into Paul and Mortensen, though filming may resume soon.

Love is Blind: One of the biggest upstarts in reality TV has already faced exploitation allegations and lawsuits dating back to 2022, and its reputation continued to tank this year after its latest season (No. 10) drew manosphere accusations. One male contestant compared himself to alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate, while another is suing a woman (not from the show) who accused him of sexual assault. Some women contestants also said producers cut conversations in which they told men that having voted for President Trump in 2024 was a dealbreaker for them.

Documentary fallout: America’s Next Top Model has long been the poster child for reality TV’s 2000s-era psychological warfare. The show’s controversy is back in the limelight with a recent Netflix documentary featuring the show’s creator and host, Tyra Banks, who’s now being criticized for expressing a lack of accountability for the show’s poor treatment of contestants. Months earlier, a documentary about The Biggest Loser, another popular but controversial reality show from the 2000s, raised fresh allegations of physical and emotional harm by trainers Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, which they deny.

Meanwhile…a lawsuit by a former star of The Real Housewives of New York City, which accuses Bravo and producer Andy Cohen of creating a hostile work environment, is proceeding in federal court.—ML

Below Deck: It’s the Bravo show that takes hot people, makes them serve rich people on a yacht in a beautiful location, then plies them with alcohol to see who hooks up or throws punches at the end of every episode. And when they’re so bad at their jobs that a captain (preferably Sandy) loses it on them, that’s the stuff. Sometimes, a random famous person, like former Major League Baseball player Johnny Damon, rents the yacht just to keep viewers on their toes (see it here). They’ve really figured out the recipe for compelling television.—DL

Say Yes to the Dress: In an industry of reality shows broadcasting brides acting outrageously, TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress offers a heartwarming alternative. The roughly 20-minute episodes follow a few soon-to-be brides as they choose their wedding dress at the iconic Kleinfeld’s in Manhattan. Over the course of its 23 seasons, 337 episodes, and 20+ spinoffs, you’ll enjoy opinionated bridesmaids egging on broke brides lusting after Pnina Tornai ballgowns, and the divas who make magic happen (aka go into that little room to get a few thousand dollars knocked off the dress price). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll vow to never try on a trumpet silhouette.—MM

Chopped: The Food Network show’s concept is simple: Chefs have limited time to make a dish from a basket of mystery ingredients, and judges pick a winner. But sometimes, the ingredients are Fun Dip and canned octopus. And contestants all have chef’s knife tattoos and there are pots of boiling water everywhere. One time, a judge who hated raw onions kept getting served raw onions. And there was a time when a chef cut their finger and tried to “cauterize” the open wound with lemon juice before hand-tossing a fresh salad. Sometimes children do the cooking—or everyone is on a desert island for some reason. And winners compete in a Tournament of All-Star Ultimate Master Champions. There you have it: all the ingredients for a perfect reality TV show.—BC

It might feel like The Real Housewives franchise has been screaming at you from Bravo for hundreds of years, but there’s a long list of unscripted shows that have offered up even more drama—at least based on the overall number of seasons, if not the quality of interpersonal dissing:

• Despite its debut just 26 years ago, Survivor recently premiered its 50th season and has been renewed for at least two more.
• A few of these shows have had nonconsecutive seasons, including America’s Most Wanted and American Idol.

Cops, which premiered in 1989, is the oldest reality show on the list. The show was permanently removed from Paramount Networks following nationwide protests against police brutality in 2020, but was picked up by Fox Nation in 2021.