Meet reality TV kingpin Mike Darnell, who oversees everything from The Bachelor to Ellen to TMZ to Basketball Wives

The New York Times

The Warner Bros. TV executive, who's in charge of alternative programming, oversees more than 30 shows. “He’s the best executive in reality television I’ve ever worked with,” says Peter Roth, the head of Warner Bros. TV and Darnell's boss. Darnell was responsible for putting American Idol and Gordon Ramsay's many shows on air when he worked at Fox. “The viewer is desensitized,” he says of trying to create a reality TV hit nowadays. “It’s much, much, much harder to get people’s attention with a crazy idea than it used to be. It’s been done. Now it’s less about jolting the viewer and controversy. Now it’s about being clever and finding stuff that you know will be broad-based. You have to smell the tide of where things are and where it’s going.”