Reality TV as union busting?

TV writers and actors get paid decent money, because they're unionized. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists's contract specifies fees for every type of TV appearance.

Reality TV stars are not "television and radio artists" and do not need to be paid union rates. Reality television shows can feature non-union performers without violating AFTRA agreements. 

This is why reality TV dominates television: it's cheap to produce.

Yet actors unions were formed for a reason. Two factors exert downwards pressure on actors' wages. First, there are a large number of people willing and able to work as actors and a small number of employers. In situations like this, employers can use their buying or "monopsony" power to artifically depress wages.

Second, acting - like professional sports, or music - is a "winner take all" profession. A handful of actors with star power - the ability to attract thousands or millions or viewers  - command huge earnings. The hope of becoming a star attracts a super-abundance of wannabe actors willing to work for little more than a chance to fulfil their dreams. 

So I wouldn't want to see the existing actors unions busted.

No, I'm troubled by the exploitation of reality TV performers, particularly naive, vulnerable or unstable ones. Hoarders, which stars people with a form of obsessive compulsive disorder that makes it extraordinarily difficult for them to throw anything away, even things most of us would perceive immediately as "waste", is particularly disturbing.  

The plotline of Hoarders is simple. The hoarder is at a crisis point, about to be evicted, for example, or lose custody of their children. A psychiatrist arrives, along with a clean-up crew, to sort out the mess. The hoarder is clearly distressed, but the clean-up must happen, and it does. Hoarders gives the viewer a narrative of transformation: from chaos to order, from sickness to health.

Someone who believes that the world works as described in Econ 1000 - perfectly informed rational individuals, neither buyers nor sellers have market power - would see nothing wrong with Hoarders. People's choice to participate reveals that they are better off as a result of being on the show. There is no need for government intervention, or regulation.

It is hard to believe that the people shown in Hoarders are perfectly informed rational individuals. Indeed, the fact that people are willing to accept the offer "Shame yourself on national television in exchange for a clean-up crew and a couple of days of therapy" is a damning indictment of the state of mental health care. If you believe you're watching some kind of cure, people's problems being solved, you're kidding yourself. The clean-up and therapy is often little more than a short-term bandaid solution - end-of-season follow-up shows reveal that a number of the hoarders just go right back to accumulating stuff.

The risk for harm is intensified by the fact that there is nothing to stop recruiters from lying to would-be contestants. The notorious Superstar USA told contestants that they would be participating in an American Idol type contest, but week after week promoted the worst singers. The coaching and styling the contestants received was designed to bring out the worst, not the best, in their voices. Would they have signed up if they had known that the intention was to mock the contestants on national television? I doubt it.

But what about somewhat tamer reality TV shows, "Say yes to the dress" or "What not to wear." Anyone who has appeared on television knows the viewer sees what the director wishes them to see. You might be a good person. But if you let a reality TV crew into your home for a week, they can string together every moment during that week when you were less than perfect and portray you as an out-of-control, abusive monster. If reality TV performers do not realize the risks that they are taking - and it is hard to realize how badly you can be stung until it happens to you - they will agree to take part in shows that harm their personal reputations.

It is hard to know how often, or how deeply, reality TV contestants are harmed by their on-screen performances. Yet this summer saw suicides of two people involved in reality TV shows: Russell Armstrong, estranged husband of one of the Real Housewives of Beverley Hills, and Wade Belak, who was participating in Battle of the Blades. No connection has been made between Belak's suicide and his Battle of the Blades performance, but on air he can be heard saying that the contest reminded him of being at a high school dance. I can imagine that pushing someone over the edge.

O.k., so some people involved in reality TV shows go off the rails. So what? Lots of paid actors have troubles, as do people in all walks of life. Economics cannot solve the problems of the world (yet). But it does have something to say about reality TV.

First, participants should be fully informed about the risks and rewards involved. This would eliminate Superstar USA type shows, that deliberately deceive contestants. I would even endorse the licensing of reality TV participants: a minimum level of training and demonstrated awareness of the risks involved before filming begins.

Second, children should be given additional protection against exploitation, over and above that provided by requirements for parental consent. I'm not thinking here of Toddlers and Tiaras, but rather of the British show "Seven up" (and it's follow-ups, 14 up, 21 up, and so on). This show interviewed children at seven, fourteen, and so on, with an avowedly scientific aim of showing how childhood environment influenced adult development.

As it turns out, nothing would influence these children's lives as much as being part of the Up series. One of the participants, John Brisby is now a successful barrister (lawyer) - but his career prospects will be forever tainted by the fact that millions of people have seen a higly unflattering portrait of his 7- and 14- year old self.

(As an aside, one of the most fascinating aspects of the Up series has been the gradual shift in power from interviewer to interviewee. In the early episodes, the children had little choice but to play the roles assigned to them. Now that millions of viewers are waiting to hear the latest on Neil, Suzy, Bruce, Paul and so on, they hold the balance of power: "interview me on my terms, or not at all.")

Finally, I would favour requiring producers to provide reality TV show performers with a basic, minimum level of monetary compensation.

The TV show Braniacs featured an experiment a while ago. They offered people on the street a toilet brush worth £2 saying "try this new product" - people accepted the gift. Then they offered people a £2 coin saying "try our new product." People refused and walked away.

Paying people for their performances would make reality TV participants realize that what are doing is work, something worth getting paid for - which would make them approach their assignments with a more cynical and realistic gaze. Even if they decided, in the end, to risk everthing in the hope of 15 minutes of fame, they would at least have some monetary compensation for their troubles.

Yet perhaps the strongest argument for paying reality TV performers is straight out of ECON 1000: if reality TV was more expensive to produce, there might be a bit less of it around.

Comments

[Determinant]

Why not just make reality stars have to pay union dues and receive union scale? If I understand correctly acting union contracts are designed to accommodate transitional and near-casual work situations.

[Frances Woolley]

Determinant - it's been discussed, see e.g. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sag-aftra-members-speak-merger-190254. However if some acting jobs are restricted to AFTRA members only, it is hard to see the existing membership being enthusiastic about a massive expansion in numbers.

[Brendan]

"First, there are a large number of people willing and able to work as actors and a small number of employers. In situations like this, employers can use their buying power to artifically depress wages."

I'm not sure I understand how lower wages because the supply of labour far outstrips the demand for it could be considered to be artificially depressing wages. Aren't the unions artificially increasing the wages? Is the argument that there are so purchaser's of labour (ie. studios) that they have some sort of unfair advantage that skews the market?

[Frances Woolley]

Brendan - I'm thinking of a standard monopsony situation - many sellers, few (or just one) buyers. (The mirror image of monopoly: many buyers, one seller). But didn't want to go into a lengthy explanation of the economics of monopsony.

[Brendan]

Thanks Frances. That makes sense. If anyone needs me, I'll be watching Top Chef and X-Factor.

[Bob Smith]

Frances,

But is the modern television industry really a monopsony? Hey, when AFTRA was founded in the 1930's, no disagreement, at that time the radio industry consisted of NBC and CBS (ABC was spun-out of NBC in the 1940s in response to competition concerns). In the early years of television, again, no disagreement, when TV shows were produced by the networks and there were only 3 of them, hard to argue that's not a monopsony. But now we live in a 500 channel TV era, when shows aren't made (and actors aren't hired) by networks, but by independent production companies (of which there seem to be zillions), I'm not sure that analogy holds.

On the contrary, I suspect that, as with the car companies, the collapse in union power and the push for cheaper content isn't a reflection of labour market power on the part of the networks, but rather a reflection of the collapse of market power (on the output side) as they have to fight-off ever more aggresive entrants into the market (to say nothing of alternative forms of entertainment). The big three car makers aren't beating up their unions because there's a vast pool of unemployed workers who'd love to work for GM (even at reduced wages), they're beating up their unions because the Japanese and Koreans have aggresively undercut whatever market power they once had and if they don't cut costs they won't survive as viable businesses.

Similarly, for TV, surely it's no concidence that reality television was first brought to North America by CBS in 2000 (Survivor) when it was at the nadir of it's fortunes and when (i) Fox (the aggresive new entrant) had just beaten it up (and after taking its football contract) to become one of the big three networks, (ii) HBO (and other cable channels) started achieving mass success (first with Oz in 1997, then with the Sopranos in 1999), and (iii) people started realizing that the internet could be a delivery mechanism for content (albeit, initially the illegal distribution of copyrighted material). AFTRA's problem is the same problem as the UAW's, namely that unions can only command above market wages in an environment when their employers have some sort of market power (so that the union and the employer can split the rents). If that's no longer the case, it's less a function of "union busting" than a function of competition in the television industry.

[Bob Smith]

"Yet perhaps the strongest argument for paying reality TV performers is straight out of ECON 1000: if reality TV was more expensive to produce, there might be a bit less of it around."

But people seem to watch them - if reality show participants are willing to work for peanuts, artificially reducing the supply of reality TV shows by driving up costs would seem to involve a hefty deadweight loss to the fans of "19 kids and counting" (Christian nut jobs and/or rabbits?), "Todlers in Tieras" (pedophiles?), and "Jersey Shore" (troglodytes?).

Of course, having read that last sentence, i realize I totally undermined my argument. I confess, though, that I do like Gail Vaz Oxlade and her shows and the various Mike Holmes shows, so not all reality shows are horrible.

[Jacques René Giguère]

Reality contestants are carefully screened. There have enough testimonies from production crew to that effect.Most contestants are obviously pathological narcissists.
They are also low-information. Many of them think they will branch out into the mainstream and are totally oblivious to the real structure of "The Industry".

Anyway, the fact remains that human beings can survivve on 3 bowl of rice a day. Barring a system where full employment is reached and non-zero shadow prices can be obtained, any labor market will lead to subsistence wages.
One has only to look at the situation in the Soviet Union after the fall.
IN the end , MAlthus was right.

[Determinant]

Other way around, Frances. As I understand it there are no restrictions about studios hiring one union or another. There is a union clause though in acting unions that states that a union member can only work on union-organized productions. There is also a threshold for for hours worked that if you pass means you have to take out a union card on a union production.

Though complicated, it means that most network and movie studio production is organized.

For instance, a production can use crew and other usually unseen staff as extras, some smaller shoots do this just to give all their staff a piece of time on the "big screen" and they don't have to unionize but if you appear on screen regularly, you have to join the union or the production will shut down. Once you hit the trigger level of hours, you have to pay the initiation fee and take out a union card.

Tiger Woods was fined by ACTRA for working on non-union commercial shoots.

[W. Peden]

Bob Smith,

That sentence on the fan bases on various reality TV shows is hilarious. If you'd put the "19 Kids and Counting" bit at the end, for extra bathos and rabbitness, it would be a perfect sentence.

But I don't think that Frances Woolley's point is that reality TV shows are awful. 99% of television is chewing gum for the brain: addictive, non-nourishing, and tasteless for most of the time. The point is that reality TV shows are union-busting.

Where there are un-unionisable workers in a clear monopsony position (IF we grant that TV is a monopsony, though I think you are right that the burden of proof is very much on those who assert that it is a monopsony given the number of modern channels and the comparatively low entry in contrast to the past) then one solution has been through loose but binding rules. I'm thinking in particular of military covenants: it is impractical to have armies that can strike, so the state willingly forgoes much of its bargaining power by setting minimum standards of care etc. Regulating TV, as Frances Woolley suggests, is an interesting idea.

Another alternative would be to radically lower entry costs, particularly for terrestrial TV. But would this be compatible with the regulation of TV required to protect children, if you had 100 channels available to all and channels coming in-and-out of existence regularly? Regulators in the UK used to have trouble with a 5th terrestrial channel and how much sex they were allowed to show. At a certain point, surely the burden of regulating minimum standards for reality TV performers is less than the burden of dealing with a low-entry cost TV market?

[Bob Smith]

Of course, for really low-brow reality TV, try the new reality TV shows that run in the evenings on Spike TV or the Action network (I'm a night owl). There's "Jail" and "Bait Car". They make "Cops" look like Masterpiece Theatre - I really don't need to say much more than that. That they appear on networks targetted to men is probably an indicia of why men are performing so badly in labour markets these days (i.e., we're morons).

Peden, I take your point that you could regulate up the treatment (or wages) of participants in reality shows. But why do we want to? What is it about participants in reality shows that entitles them to greater protection than people working at McDonalds? Soldiers, I understand, they're a group whose interest society wants to protect. But, I agree with Jacques assessment of many reality show participants, namely that they're pathological narcissists (that doesn't apply to all of them, of course, but a fairly healthy majority). If they thought they could get 15 minutes on TV and a slim chance at a fortune they'd participate in a show titled "Let's feed someone to a shark". Frankly, most of them are entitled to less protection than that afforded to McDonalds workers (or cockroaches).

In fact, come to think of it, "Let's feed someone to a shark" might go some ways to resolving the problem, namely by draining the pool of reality show contestants. Heck, you could probably get a pay-per-view deal for the "Jersey Shore" cross-over episode. I bet people would pay good money to see that. Anyone know a producer I could pitch this to?

[Frances Woolley]

Jacques René: "any labor market will lead to subsistence wages"

That's why I'm a bit reluctant to endorse the elimination of actors unions: some people might be willing to work as actors for 2 bowls of rice day!

Bob: "unions can only command above market wages in an environment when their employers have some sort of market power (so that the union and the employer can split the rents)."

True - the drive to cut costs through use of unpaid actors is, in part, a reflection of the splintering of the TV audience (meaning smaller audiences), decreased cost of entry, etc.

W. Peden - I wonder about radically lowering entry costs. Need to think about that a little bit - there's certainly some excellent original comedy on youtube, e.g. Picnic face productions, tete a claque , and that's a kind of zero entry cost television. In some ways this blog, in providing free content that's written by people who aren't professional journalists, is a bit like reality television. And we can do it because the costs of entry are so low.

Bob "What is it about participants in reality shows that entitles them to greater protection than people working at McDonalds?"

I'd settle for reality tv show participants having the same participation that is offered to people working at McDonalds.

[Frances Woolley]

"they're pathological narcissists" - and unlike teachers, professors, bloggers, journalists, high profile twitterers etc have no socially acceptable outlet for their narcissism....

[Nick Rowe]

Do we really need to assume monopsony power to explain actors' wages? Supply and demand look good enough for me.

But yes, amateurs' ignorance of what they are letting themselves into is a problem. Too many "Gotcha!" examples.

Seven Up resonates incredibly strongly with me. Almost exactly the same generation as me. The participant Nick is eerily similar, even down to the name. Actors couldn't do that, because you would know it's all made up. But yes, probably not a good show for the participants. Times change, and we all like to forget things we've said and done in the past. (Oh God, I must be an idiot for blogging, because in future I will almost certainly regret many things I've written.)

For all it's many flaws, reality TV can be anthropology, of a sort.

[Phil Koop]

If you want to run an actual scientific psychological experiment, you have to run it by the ethics board. I see no plausible reason why "reality" TV should not be held to at least the same standard.

[Nick Rowe]

Frances: ""they're pathological narcissists" - and unlike teachers, professors, bloggers, journalists, high profile twitterers etc have no socially acceptable outlet for their narcissism...."

Bingo!

[Frances Woolley]

Nick: "Seven Up resonates incredibly strongly with me" I had never watched Seven Up until one weekend I rented the entire collection and spend days totally immersed in the lives of these people. It was tremendously moving - especially watching Neil's descent into depression, and the triumph of the "this-is-why-ritalin-was-invented" cockney kid. (Interesting that you identify with the character who has devoted his life to a laudable but totally unsolvable research problem, i.e. nuclear fusion?)

Phil: "If you want to run an actual scientific psychological experiment, you have to run it by the ethics board. I see no plausible reason why "reality" TV should not be held to at least the same standard." Absolutely! And research ethics boards are an excellent model for reality TV - I wish I'd said that in the post.

The worst example in Seven Up was a question, asked to one of the "working class" contestants. She was, at 21, just newly married. The interviewer asked "do you wish you had had more sexual experience before you got married?" Now that question put her in an utterly impossible position. If she answered "no" she sounded stupid and naive. If she answered "yes" she was admitting on national television that she'd been sleeping around.

[Bob Smith]

"I see no plausible reason why "reality" TV should not be held to at least the same standard."

Because they're not conducting psychological experiments? One's serious research, the other's vapid enternatinment - I'm not sure why they'd be held to the same standard. In fact, by that logic, do we have to run the plots of Law and Order or CSI Miami by lawyers and forensic investigators? (From a policy perspective, there's actually a compelling argument for doing so. Such shows create unrealistic expectations among Jury pools about what sort of evidence they should expect to see in criminal trials and the significance to be given to such evidence - the "CSI effect". It makes it difficult for prosecutors to convict without ten different types of DNA evidence, fingerprints, and a computer generated recreation of the crime, but equally, where such evidence exists, makes it difficult for defense attorneys to overcome such evidence when juries have been led to believe that it's decisive.) That might be nice, but I'm not sure its practical.

In any event, there'd probably be free speech implications associated with requiring "approvals" for television shows (I realize that the FCC could care less about free speech, but we should).

[Frances Woolley]

Bob: "Because they're not conducting psychological experiments? One's serious research, the other's vapid enternatinment - I'm not sure why they'd be held to the same standard."

The purpose of research ethics approval is to protect participants from harm. The argument for protection from harm seems to me to be even stronger if the only purpose of the exercise is audience entertainment.

(I wouldn't say it's vapid entertainment - "16 and pregnant" for example, created by Morgan Freeman, is very much a morality play "you think you want to have a baby - here's what you have to look forward to." "Wife swap" has very strong messages about what is and is not good parenting.)

The "CSI effect". - I have a cousin who was a cop, involved with the Toronto equivalent of the CSI unit. It's great to listen to him on the subject "AND THEY GOT FINGERPRINTS OFF A BRICK!!! YOU CAN'T GET FINGERPRINTS OF A BRICK!!!"

I've heard another argument made against CSI, namely that it gives criminals all sorts of hints about how to avoid detection.

[Gregor Bush]

"Indeed one of the principal objections to the free market is precisely that it performs its task so well: it gives people what they want instead of what some people feel they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself"

-Milton Friedman

[Frances Woolley]

Gregor Bush: "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself"

True.

Our choices are determined by our preferences - what we want - and our constraints - what choices are available to us. Some people have a large range of choices available to them, some people have a small range of choices available to them.

All animals have freedom, but some animals have more freedom than others.

[Gregor Bush]

Frances:

"Our choices are determined by our preferences - what we want - and our constraints - what choices are available to us. Some people have a large range of choices available to them, some people have a small range of choices available to them."

Some people have preferences which we strongly disapprove of or seem utterly incomprehensible - such as a willingness to make a fool of oneself on national TV for absolutely no monetary compensation. Or a willingness to watch these ridiculous shows week after week. I’m sure I dislike reality TV even more than you do. But I’m also not surprised that there are millions of people who will work on a TV show for free, and a good portion of them might even pay for the privilege.

Is it really their “constraints” that are causing them to make this decision (which of course requires the intervention a benevolent policy maker)? Or are you really wishing that they were further constrained, so that such an “incorrect” choice cannot be made.

“Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately of our coercion.”

-Lionel Trilling

[Jacques René Giguère]

Bloggers , like teachers, may have their narcissic side but specialized blogs provide real benefits to bloggers and commenters alike. We get useful information and sharpen our thoughts.
CSI effect may force prosecutors to better argue their cases.
Better prepared criminals? A lot of crimes are impulsive. Most petty crimes involve rather incompetent people, which is why they get caught.
In Texas, the blacks and white trash will fry anyway, whatever the forensics says. Ask Todd Willingham...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=todd+willingham

[Bob Smith]

"I wouldn't say it's vapid entertainment - "16 and pregnant" for example, created by Morgan Freeman, is very much a morality play "you think you want to have a baby - here's what you have to look forward to."

Well, that may have been the intent of "16 and pregant" or the "Teen Mom" series, but I'm pretty sure the appeal to viewers is something along the lines of "hey, check out these dumb skanks and their moron boyfriends - I may be a slack-jawed loser, but boy, do I feel better about myself". And I'm pretty sure the producers and networks know that.

"Some people have preferences which we strongly disapprove of or seem utterly incomprehensible - such as a willingness to make a fool of oneself on national TV for absolutely no monetary compensation."

Well, at least in the case of some of the reality shows, the lure is the, very remote, chance of significant compensation (American idol, X factor, Survivor, Big Brother, etc.). In that, reality shows are no different than good old fashioned game shows (remember "Let's make a deal", where people showed up in moron costumes and they'd give you a $100 if you happened to have a tire iron in your purse?), albeit with higher stakes and longer odds. And they're probably know different than say, baseball, hockey or basketball where players (and their families) will devote years of their lives, and considerable resources on the extremely thin hope that they'll make the big leagues for the million dollar payoff (I mean, are American idol contestants more abused than a career minor league player who never quite makes it to the game?).

That's what always strikes me about watching American Idol. A lot of the contestants (especially in the initial screening round) are - how do I say this nicely - sad sacks (and, no doubt, Fox surely playes this up). They see reality television and the prospect of being a singing sensation as a way out of what is otherwise likely to be a lifetime of drudgery. Now, typically their assessment of their own talent is suspect (witness the people who storm off ranting and raving that Paula and Simon know s**t about the music industry), but given their flawed self-assessment, it's no more irrational for them to participate in reality TV shows than it is for kids to spend years playing hockey, baseball or basketball in the hopes that they'll make the "bigs" (with the corresponding million dollar contracts).

On one level, it's kinda sad, in that they see a long shot gamble as their best chance for living the "good" life. But, from that perspective, being a contestant on American Idol may well be a more rational way of trying to get into the music biz than spending a lifetime playing in bars for beer and peanuts in the hope that you'll be discovered - either way your odds are bad, but this way, you don't have to spend a lifetime waiting for Simon to tell you that you suck.

[Frances Woolley]

Bob: "it's no more irrational for them to participate in reality TV shows than it is for kids to spend years playing hockey, baseball or basketball in the hopes that they'll make the "bigs" (with the corresponding million dollar contracts)."

I like that analogy. And this gets at the difference between something like American Idol and something like Hoarders. On American Idol, people know the odds (at least as well as they do in other human capital investment decisions). And, actually, as a way of producing pop stars, it's far more meritocratic than the Jessica Simpson my-daddy-has-connections route. I'm all for it.

But with some of these other shows, I am far less convinced that the participants are making fully informed choices - or that they they enjoy the kinds of basic protections that we require employers to provide in parallel contexts. I'm thinking here of shows like Intervention where the participants are told that they are being filmed for a documentary about their addiction, but in fact are being set up for an intervention. That would never get past a university research ethics board.

[Evan Harper]

It's worth mentioning that most reality television presumably involves a great deal of coaching, prompting, selective editing, and outright fictionalization.

[Bob Smith]

"But with some of these other shows, I am far less convinced that the participants are making fully informed choices - or that they they enjoy the kinds of basic protections that we require employers to provide in parallel contexts"

What about the TV news? Now, there's real reality television, but no one asks the participants if they want to participate (and, fair enough, the contents of the news is a matter of public record and, usually, but not often, the media doesn't "create" it in the same way the CBS creates survivor). But what about the shows that lie in between the nightly news and hoarders? What about reality television shows like "Cops" or ABC's "To Catch a Predator". There's a form of reality television where the participants truly aren't making informed choices to appear on TV (quite the contrary, for obvious reasons, they're probably keen to avoid such publicity).

At least the "Intervention" or "Hoarders" participants are making a decision to appear on television, even if they're unaware of what form that appearance amy entail (and no doubt the producers of those shows have loosely worded releases which allow them to do whatever they want). In contrast, the shirtless, touthless, drunk and stoned stars of "Cops" or the deviant stars of "Predator" end up on TV simply because they had the misfortune to be committing their (alleged) crimes when the Fox or ABC crew was doing their thing (the same might be said of the "stars" of "Bait Car" or "Jail"). Moreover, I'm willing to give the producers of "Hoaders" or "Intervention" the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have some interest in seeing their "stars" rehabilitated (even if its entirely secondary to their primary objective of good ratings. I doubt the same could be said of the producers of "cops" or "predator" who, perhaps understandably, are keen on seeing their subjects incarcerated.

But the criminals (or accused criminals) on "Cops" or "Predator" are every bit as essential to the production of their shows as the hoarders or the addicts. Granted, they're also less sympathetic individuals (although, that may simply be a function of editing, should we be less sympathetic to the drug addict selling her body on "Cops" than the drug addict on "Intervention", who may do all sort of evil things off-screen?). Obviously, that's a context where informed consent isn't viable, but I'm also not sure that it's case where we think it's necessary, but I'm trying to figure out how to distinguish "Cops" from "Intervention".

[Achinhibitor]

As one commentator said, people on reality TV are pathological narcissists. Or maybe publicity is directly valuable to them. E.g., people readily volunteer to go on the Jerry Springer show, despite that it is famous for humiliating the guests. And how many guests go on the talk show circuit to hawk memoirs of the messes they've made of their lives?