The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered just about every production in the world of film and scripted television and now it appears reality TV is soon to feel the sting as their live shows remain in limbo in light of the current state of affairs.
Over at ABC, American Idol is supposed to start airing live performance shows in just a couple of days. But last week, prep work, including rehearsals with the finalists, was suspended, and the contestants were sent home to be with their families amid the escalating pandemic. Several strategies are being worked out, including having the live performances being videoed in from where the finalists are located but no final decision has been made as of yet. At Fox, So You Think You Can Dance had to suspend work as well.
NBC has had to deal with losing the Summer Olympics just the other day and America’s Got Talent cut short its audition tapings, losing a day of production. The new plan is to run one original episode of the show each week, rather than doubling up episodes during the Olympics as had been previously planned. American Ninja Warrior taping was postponed as well but will run some specials as they wait for the show to get back up and running. As for The Voice, the pre-tapped episodes end their run in April and NBC hopes to run the live shows in some capacity when that time comes.
All is not lost for networks in terms of having reality programming to air. Fox has Hell’s Kitchen, Beat Shazam and its new competition format Ultimate Tag completed and ready to go while NBC has World of Dance and Songland completed and on deck. ABC also has Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart which has already been shot and completed.
It’s definitely a weird time out there for reality shows that were already shooting. The Bachelorette has been hit by the production shutdown as has Fox’s Masterchef, which was forced to shut down in the middle of its season 11 shoot and CBS’ Survivor also faded to black during the pandemic. Where do they go from here? It’s going to be a wait and see strategy moving forward.
