What Was the First Reality TV Show?

Reality TV has fascinated audiences for decades. Whether you’re a fan of everyday drama or prefer to watch people compete, there’s no shortage of options. Popular long-running shows tend to launch spin-offs and are prime targets for reboots after going off air. One of the latest revivals is the talent competition “Star Search,” which originally ran from 1983 to 1995 and introduced stars like Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child and Adam Sandler.

Unscripted drama is so popular today, it feels like it’s always been a part of television—and in some ways, it has.

Although it depends on the definition of “reality TV,” “Candid Camera” is often cited as the show that started it all. It originated as the radio show “Candid Microphone” in 1947. The televised version even debuted as “Candid Microphone” in 1948 on ABC. The next year, it was renamed “Candid Camera” and premiered on NBC.

The reality show, which was on and off the air in varying formats through 2014, recorded unsuspecting people on a hidden camera as they reacted to stunts and pranks the show’s creator and original host, Allen Funt, devised. The various pranks included a woman asking a mechanic to put clean air in her tires and country legend Dolly Parton faking an ankle injury and tricking men into carrying her to her car that didn’t exist. Beginning in the early ’60s, the show ended with a reveal of the hidden camera and Funt’s classic line, “Smile! You’re on ‘Candid Camera.’”

The first reality TV show that followed a group of people in everyday life was “An American Family.” The precursor to today’s drama-filled “Real Housewives” franchise, “The Kardashians” and others, “An American Family” aired in 1973 on PBS. The 12-hour documentary showcased the Louds, an upper-middle-class family from Santa Barbara, California, for seven months and followed their real-life drama, including marital struggles and divorce. Lance Loud, the eldest son of five children, was also the first openly gay person to appear on TV.

Before unscripted series let viewers peek into people’s lives, TV broadcasts offered myriad reality game shows on which real people competed for cash or prizes. “Uncle Jim’s Question Bee” on NBC and “Truth or Consequences” were the first televised game show specials, according to the 2023 book Game Show Confidential: The Story of an American Obsession by Boze Hadleigh. The first game show to be regularly broadcast was “CBS Television Quiz,” which aired from July 1941 through May 1942.

Game shows evolved from trivia to physical challenges decades later. The first episode of “Expedition: Robinson,” a Swedish desert-island reality competition show, aired on September 13, 1997. American producers adapted the concept for “Survivor,” which first aired in 2000 and is still running with its original host, Jeff Probst.

Before TV, Americans would gather around their radios to listen to serialized shows and soap operas. Around the 1930s, audience participation began to take off, writes Emily Nussbaum in her book Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV. Radio game shows took over airwaves starting in the mid-1930s, but that wasn’t the only way average people chimed in.

DJs talked to anonymous callers who would confess their secrets on air, Nussbaum writes. One program, “The Good Will Hour,” featured unnamed guests opening up about their marital problems and other troubling secrets and receiving advice from host John J. Anthony. “Candid Microphone” similarly relied on audience participation—just without the prior knowledge of the guests. Unsuspecting people’s reactions to pranks were recorded on hidden microphones, edited and broadcast on the radio.

Talent competitions like “American Idol” have origins that predate television as well. “Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour” first reached radio airwaves on March 24, 1935. By that June, the talent contest was the most-listened show in the United States. The variety showcase format jumped to TV in the next decade, though programs like “The Ed Sullivan Show” (originally called “The Toast of the Town”) largely highlighted professional talent and weren’t staged as competitions.

Countries abroad also launched talent contests in the mid-20th century. Japan’s “Kohaku Uta Gassen” and Italy’s Sanremo Italian Song Festival both began as radio broadcasts in 1951. “Kohaku” was first televised two years later followed by Sanremo in 1955. The latter inspired the famed Eurovision Song Contest that started in 1956. All three are still running today.