According to data from Statistica, "roughly a third of U.S. adults between 18 and 64 currently watch reality TV”. Maybe you are a reality TV fan too? You may have noticed that despite the reality of climate change all around us that this crisis is rarely mentioned in scripted TV but it seems as if it is making more regular appearances in reality or ‘unscripted TV’ as it is often called.
“According to a University of Southern California study shared with NPR ahead of its fall publish date, nearly 30,000 mentions of climate change-related keywords appeared across every category of unscripted TV between last August and this February.”
These mentions can take the shape of differences in certain characteristics of the show - like in the upcoming Recipe for Disaster series which “pairs professional chefs with a friend or family member who is hopeless in the kitchen. The contestants will ‘compete to make spectacular dishes while battling ridiculous disasters.’” The series will also “feature chefs who cook with sustainable ingredients, compete to win meat and dairy-free cooking challenges, and even tell a joke about climate change being responsible for the sudden tropical rainstorm that soaks them as they try to cook.”
Other shows have climate change as an underlying premise - like Extreme E in which “electric SUVs try to outpace each other in remote parts of the world hit hard by climate change. Season one included a race in Greenland that passed by a retreating glacier.” This show, which mentions climate change frequently, was estimated to have “reached 135 million viewers across the globe” last year.
Have you noticed climate change mentions in entertainment you’ve been watching? What do you think of how the reality of climate change is being handled in scripted and unscripted TV? What could you - as a fan and consumer of entertainment - do to change the frequency and way that climate change is portrayed in popular media?