Another New Year's break, another two-week onslaught of inconsequential television programs based on the variety show model of comedians talking about themselves, watching videos of other people doing supposedly interesting things and playing games whose main entertainment function is humiliation. The resilience of this model is thought to be evidence of viewers' affection for certain TV personalities and their desire for fare whose main purpose is mindless distraction.
But a recent article in the Asahi Shimbun theorizes that the model is not as resilient as broadcasters think it is due to "Internet culture," which has increased demand for more "reality-based" television, meaning programs that rely less on contrived situations requiring editing and direction.
Traditional variety and drama series are losing out to shows that don't have scripts but instead place people in circumstances that are allowed to "play out naturally" (deta-toko shobu). In Japan, the incorporation of celebrities in travel shows where they interact with "average people" erases some of the distance between viewers and viewed, but there has always been a sense that what you see isn't what's really happening, and every so often these shows are hit with charges of yarase — faking situations so as to reach satisfying outcomes. Now, according to Asahi, there's no need to fake it, because viewers don't necessarily want pat resolutions.