Making the Band turns 20

reality blurred

The ABC reality show responsible for the boy band O-Town premiered as part of the network's "TGIF" lineup on March 24, 2000 -- two months before Survivor's take on reality TV shook up network television. "While it produced a boy band, O-Town, that’s still around today, the ABC series brought the language of reality TV from cable to broadcast TV and foreshadowed so many shows to come, from American Idol to Project Runway to The Apprentice," says Andy Dehnart. Making the Band premiered one month after Fox's Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? debacle from The Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss. With Making the Band, though, "reality TV had finally found its way to a broadcast network, although MTV had been having great success with The Real World, its 1990s breakout hit," says Dehnart. "But broadcast TV had not yet aired an episodic, character-driven, narrative unscripted show."