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There's been something weird about writing in media (and gaming) for a while now, and i wonder how much of it has to do with graphics and effects. As they become more and more of a budget, and the writer therefore becomes a smaller percentage, people start thinking that the writing doesn't matter (rather than seeing it as a high return place to spend your money, since doubling the salary and getting a better writer would be a small percentage of the overall cost).
At least part of it has to be that the average audience doesn't care too much about writing as long as there are other factors to dazzle them in the production.
Hence why Reality TV remains popular.
Is reality tv popular or just profitable? If I can make TV show X for 1m and it generates 1.2m or Show Y for 0.5m and make 0.8m Y is the right choice even if X is more popular. Hell it is the right choice even if it makes 0.6m provided I could invest 0.7m somewhere else and make at least 0.1m
Shows like The Bachelor and The Masked Singer get millions of viewers.
I think the appeal is that you can afford to produce many of such shows at once and it only takes one of them getting popular to pay off handsomely.
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