Comments on: The State of Reality TV: When in the World is Project Runway? http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/02/05/the-state-of-reality-tv-when-in-the-world-is-project-runway/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Myles McNutt http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/02/05/the-state-of-reality-tv-when-in-the-world-is-project-runway/comment-page-1/#comment-67143 Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:59:58 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=8295#comment-67143 First, I don’t know if it was intentional, but your use of “in any fashion” was most wonderful. Kudos.

And yes, I was not a fan of the 90-minute episodes for a number of reasons. While there was a single episode which benefited from the additional time, turning a designer’s downfall into a Shakespearean tragedy with aplomb, the rest felt like a burden. The things being added were not the reasons I was watching, and the additional time meant that watching the show took more time out of my week. The show is not “appointment television” to the point where the extra time will make me watch more Lifetime and less everything else – I will just not bother watching Lifetime.

As for Project Runway in Europe, I can only speculate. Perhaps it’s a question of underdeveloped fashion industries, or perhaps the format is seen as too distinctly American (or, at the very least, distinctly “English”)? That doesn’t make any sense either, but it does seem strange that a country like Italy hasn’t at least considered it. Maybe it is considered too low brow for certain fashion industries? It’s certainly an intriguing question.

]]> By: Bärbel Göbel http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/02/05/the-state-of-reality-tv-when-in-the-world-is-project-runway/comment-page-1/#comment-67134 Sat, 05 Feb 2011 20:59:00 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=8295#comment-67134 Great piece. I think that scarcity and a one-per year season schedule do a lot to elevate the programming to a higher standard and make it more mainstream in turn, but I also believe that in many instances the foreign television market simply plays by different rules from the US market, which has been saturated for decades.
Extending or shortening programs, changing standard episode numbers per season or the amount of seasons produced is of course bound to the national industry in question.
For example, although the series cannot and should not be compared to “Project Runway” in any fashion, “Germany’s Top Model”, hosted by Heidi Klum, “suffered” by Heidi’s like for feature length, and went to 90minute standard episodes in its second season. In Germany, this worked wonders, as the episodes now can successfully disrupt the stripping and flow of other networks and stations. All of German TV is on a very strict schedule all stations adhere to almost 100% of the time. Hence one programming choice like this, inhibits zapping. In the US the start and end times appear more fluid to begin with, and the schedule change in Project Runway does not seem to have the same effects, especially with DVRs becoming a strong trend.
I find it horrible, much like the unnecessary minutes in Project Runway btw. I liked the compressed version with less drama better.

On another note, I wondered about the Project Runway foreign format sales locations, as the European market does not really seem to catch on? Any pointers on this?

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