MTV’s reality-TV format was born from a 1970s PBS documentary

Evidence

Undaunted, Bunim and Murray regrouped. Looking for new inspiration, they got their heads out of the 1930s and found what they were looking for in perhaps an even unlikelier place: early 1970s public television, and more specifically, the documentary format. They starting thinking hard about a PBS show from the period called An American Family. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 823

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reality television’s direct ancestor was a 1971 PBS countercultural documentary — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 824