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When the U.K.'s Pop Idol struck, garnering record-shattering ratings, American producers reconsidered. During last season, both shows in the fourth instalment of American Idol were ranked second and third in the U.S. behind only CSI. Its franchise partner, Canadian Idol, is currently the No.1 show in this country.
[David Lyle] currently heads up Fox Reality, a 24-hour reality TV channel, which launched in 18.5 million homes throughout the United States May 24. Filled with American programming, Lyle says he also set out to incorporate international reality programming, including Hooked Up, a dating show filmed in and around Banff, produced by Calgary's Nomadic Pictures.
While reality and quiz shows have been a consistent part of television around the world, Lyle says it's only in the Americas, where Candid Camera hit in the 1950s, that a drought hit between the late 1970s to the late 1990s. The comeback came, he suggests, with Who Wants to be a Millionaire, in which the cult of the common man and common woman made its debut.