With The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea both having become phenomenon's' in the last two years it has posed the question "Are reality shows pointless with all the stereotypical characters and overdramatized storylines or are they actually entertaining and deserving of our prime time TV slots?"
Well according to the fans, the answer is the latter. The Only Way is Essex alone has raked in 990,000 viewers and this year beat other popular shows including Downton Abbey for the BAFTA YouTube Audience Award, the only award voted for by the public.
TOWIE has also built up quite an impressive fan base online with 668,745 likes on Facebook and 232,105 followers on Twitter; which is unsurprising since the two shows target audiences are under the age of 25, with both casts' members near this age, and the predominant users of such social networking sites are in this age gap too.
However, don't be confused into believing that these shows haven't had their fair share of public backlash, as there have been many complaints about misrepresentation from the Essex and Chelsea population claiming that these shows are creating misleading stereotypes.
Negative reviews have also slammed both shows, Ivan Godfrey went as far as saying TOWIE was "the worst thing on television" and Made in Chelsea got called a "crime against television".
So why do people choose to willingly waste their time watching frivolous TV? The simple answer is, it's because they want to.
They're choosing to spend their relaxation time watching 'entertaining' shows like these instead of educational programmes like Countdown or 'Eggheads.
It is argued that watching intellectual programmes like these are far more beneficial as it could increase your knowledge and vocabulary, which is probably true, but once you're old enough you can make your own decisions and can parents really complain about their teenagers watching reality TV, since this year the A Level pass rate rose to 97.8%, which gives the impression that it is neither distracting nor having detrimental effects on their studies.
The generic line "some scenes have been created for your entertainment" is what generally starts reality shows but how will these hugely popular programmes end successfully?
There are now rumours that since Mark Wright has left The Only Way is Essex the show will now finish permanently, so what will they do? What ending will be conclusive enough to satisfy the avid fans that have followed their favourite cast member's lives for months? Perhaps they'll have an ending à la The Hills where the final clip was a long shot of the crew, cameras, lighting and sound equipment; which shocked the audience into realising how manufactured the show really was.
Whatever way these popular shows choose to end, it seems that reality TV, or semi-reality, is going to stay around for a while as the first ever National Reality TV Awards was held in July of this year and is scheduled to continue annually.