Reality Show

News and reality series took up six of the top 14 spots in last week's ratings, with "60 Minutes," "Rescue 911" and "48 Hours" helping CBS finish No. 1. ABC, aided by three news and reality series--"PrimeTime Live," "20/20" and "America's Funniest Home Videos"--ranked second. NBC was last. "PrimeTime Live," with Diane Sawyer's investigation of day-care centers, ranked fourth among 93 shows with its highest rating of the season--drawing an estimated 19.1 million viewers.

NBC is standing by its man, despite a report that the bachelor star of its new dating game had been expelled from a military program for drunkenly groping a female Navy officer. NBC and Nash Entertainment, producer of the summer reality show "For Love or Money," said they were unaware of the incident before casting. The second of six episodes aired Monday night. The staged, unscripted series stars Rob Campos, a 33-year-old lawyer who chooses a potential mate from 15 women.

"Boy meets girl" in India usually means boy meets girl with both sets of parents in tow. And in a new twist, an Indian reality-TV series is showing the process of traditional arranged marriages four days a week. The young woman and her parents choose one of three men--for keeps--on the program "There Is Someone Somewhere." Popular Hindi movie star Madhuri Dixit plays matchmaker-host.

The tribe has spoken. Sort of. Well, stay tuned. Whether it's from the privileged enclaves of Southern California or the bug-infested jungles of Costa Rica, reality show superstars Heidi and Spencer Pratt continue to rattle pop culture's cage with their well-publicized on-again, off-again antics. On Wednesday, the Pratts pleaded on live television to be allowed to rejoin NBC's "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!," despite having abruptly quit the newly launched show Tuesday night.

Paris Hilton is seemingly everywhere recently, promoting her new MTV reality show, "Paris Hilton's My New BFF" (10 p.m. Tuesdays), and showing up at a soundtrack release party to promote her latest film, "Repo! The Genetic Opera," last week at the Abbey in West Hollywood. (The film comes out in November.) So what does the night life fixture, who gets paid to show up at clubs from Las Vegas to London, like to do on a weekend in L.A. now that she is in a solid relationship with rocker Benji Madden?

"Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson seems a bit eccentric, but this may be plain old crazy. Robertson reportedly turned down an offer to play for the Washington Redskins so he could pursue his hobby: hunting. In the 1960s, Robertson played quarterback at Louisiana Tech. He apparently was good, so good that he started ahead of Terry Bradshaw, who went on to win four Super Bowl titles and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989. According to Sports Illustrated , the Redskins made Robertson an offer to turn pro during his junior year.

During an 11-minute, 21-second appearance on the "Tonight Show" to announce his candidacy for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger transformed a recall election that was already a national spectacle into a global media story that may break all the old rules about the way a race for elective office is waged, won and covered.

Unprotected by the conventions of Hollywood, CBS' new hit reality series, "Big Brother," has quickly moved from a voyeuristic view of the expected mini-dramas of secret crushes and dashed dreams to a significant culture clash over race. Anchored amid the summer TV rerun doldrums, the show--which is sequestering 10 strangers in a house for 100 days to see what happens--was designed as an inexpensive way to entertain viewers.

In an odd yet understandable marketing strategy, the folks behind E!'s new reality show "Mrs. Eastwood & Company" have spent a lot of pre-premiere publicity time explaining what the show isn't. Which is to say, Clint Eastwood. The legendary actor and director will appear in but a few episodes and then only briefly. He will not, for instance, be slamming doors or engaging in filmed therapy sessions with his wife, Dina, around whom the show revolves (see title.) That doesn't mean the show is not about Clint Eastwood; it is. If the principal characters -- Dina, her 15-year-old daughter Morgan and 19-year old stepdaughter Francesca -- were not related to him, there would be Absolutely No Reason to watch this, which, by reality show standards, promises to be tame to the point of sedation.