Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 39. You're listening to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 39. I'm Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you today from Los Angeles, California. and the Center for Educational Development. Visit our website at www .eslpod .com for more information about this podcast. Today's topic is reality TV. I'm going to talk about a new type of television popular in the US and pretty much all over the world. Let's get started. It's hard to watch
TV these days without seeing reality shows. Some nights it's hard to find a scripted drama to watch. There are so many different kinds of reality shows too. The most popular one in the US has been the American Idol show. This is a singing competition where amateurs try to impress the judges and the audience calls in to vote off a contestant each week. The last person left standing gets a recording contract. I think many countries now have a reality show like this.
This show starts its fourth season this year and I think it'll be more popular than ever. Another popular reality show is Big Brother. In this show a group of people live together in the same house for about 15 weeks. They're not allowed to leave and they can't have visitors. The people chosen to live in the house are usually very different. Thus this way, there is sure to be a lot of conflict. Some people form alliances
and other people try to go it alone. The contestants compete in games and each week the other contestants vote off one person from the show. Why would anyone want to be on Big Brother? The answer is easy. Money. The last person remaining gets a huge prize. In the US show, a half a million dollars. Even I'd live in a house full of strangers
for that kind of cash. Today's topic is a very popular type of entertainment in the United States called reality television or reality TV and reality means that the people in the shows are not professional actors. They may be competing or playing for a prize, but usually only one person gets paid, the one who wins the show or the contest in the
show. So these reality shows are really games that supposedly normal people participate in But I'm not sure how normal most of the people in the reality shows that I've seen are There when we talk about television reality shows is of course just one type of show there are also dramas and I I use the term scripted dramas the script is you probably know the text the words for something a scripted drama is a drama where there is a script and professional actors Act
out that script Reality shows are the opposite
where you have? Amateurs that is to say someone who is not a professional actor or anyone who's not a professional at anything you can be an amateur Skater you can be an amateur football player means you're not a professional You're not being paid for it In the reality shows you have amateurs Trying to impress the judges to impress someone means that you Make them think that you are very good at something the US the show that's most popular is called American Idol
and this is a singing contest a singing show where the audience the people watching at home can call on their telephone and vote for the person they like best that they want to win and each week one person gets voted off. To be voted off is a fairly new expression that is related to reality shows. When you say someone was voted off the show that means that people called in and voted on their telephone and they chose who the winner was going to be and in this case the
loser. The people who are part of a game like this, a competition, are called contestants. A contestant is someone who is part of the reality show or any sort of game that you see on television. For example, if it's a quiz game where you have one person asking trivia questions, questions about history, and if you get the answer right you get money or some prize. Someone on that sort of show is also a contestant. I said that the last person left standing gets a recording
contract on the show American Idol. The last person left standing means the one who survives. the one who makes it to the end, who wins in this case. A recording contract is a contract with a big record company to put out a CD or a record album. I use the expression the fourth season this year. When we talk about television shows, And we're talking about ones that go on for years and years, because American television
shows go on for five years, 10 years. Some of the more popular shows go on for maybe 15 years. Each year is called a season. Season, of course, we have four seasons in the climate. or in terms of weather, fall, winter, spring, and summer. But season, when we talk about a television show, means the year. In the U .S., the television season begins in September and ends sometime
the following summer. Another reality show I mentioned is called Big Brother and Big Brother is a show where people get together who don't know each other and live in the same house where they can't leave the house for usually a couple of months. This is a very popular show in many
countries now. The term Big Brother comes originally from a novel by a British writer George Orwell and the name of his novel in English is 1984 and it's a novel about a science fiction type of novel about the future and in the future in the novel There is the government is always watching you with cameras and other Ways of keeping track of you or following you so when someone says in English I'm afraid of big brother they mean they are afraid of government being too powerful
and Watching people without their permission or following them following what they do without their knowing about it so that expression big brother applies to the television show because there are cameras in the entire house of the big brother show a couple of more expressions I used one was that There is sure to be a lot of conflict in the house in the big brother house There is sure to be Means that they will definitely be there is sure to be problems When I go to
school tomorrow means I am expecting problems Conflict of course means when there is disagreement when two people have a fight or a argument, they yell at each other or they disagree about something, we say that this is a conflict. Conflict is also used for wars between two countries. We talk about a conflict in a certain country. It usually means that there is a war going on. In a conflict
or in a war, you often have alliances. An alliance is where you find other people or other countries to be your partner and to help you in your whatever it is, your conflict. The opposite of having
an alliance is to go it alone. To go it alone, as you probably can guess means not to have any partners to do everything by yourself I said that in the United States version of Big Brother the prize at the end is a half a million dollars and I commented that even I would live in a house full of strangers for that kind of cash That is an expression for that kind of money or for that kind of cash I would do anything or for example you can say someone goes to an expensive
restaurant and They don't get very much food You might complain for that much money They should give you more food, meaning it's a lot of money. That's going to do it for today's ESL podcast. As usual, we ask that you email us and tell us who you are and where you're listening from. Our address is eslpod at eslpod .com. From Los Angeles, California, I'm Dr. Jeff McQuillen. We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast. ESL Podcast is produced by the Center for Educational Development
in Los Angeles, California. This podcast is copyright 2005.