Celebrity & Entertainment TV Shows

If there's one thing people like to debate these days, it's what makes a celebrity a celebrity. It used to be, the argument goes, that people were famous for a reason. They had extraordinary talents, or they accomplished amazing things. These days, the argument continues, people are getting famous just for being famous. Whether or not a celebrity got to be famous for having talent, though, all celebrities have one thing in common: in one way or another, they entertain us. And celebrity entertainment TV has grown into an entire genre that supports our desire to be entertained by famous people.

In the old days, celebrity entertainment TV consisted mostly of news-and-gossip magazine programs. These shows - Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition and the like - were TV versions of things that had long been popular on the newsstand and in the supermarket checkout line: gossip tabloids, soap opera digests, and movie star fan magazines. These programs blended the styles of nightly news broadcasts with the flashy feel of the tabloids, delivering story after story about celebrity antics.

As the celebrity entertainment industry grew, it became obvious that audiences weren't interested only in the private lives of actors, musicians and other traditional celebrities. Viewers would flock to programs that showcased the private lives of anyone, as long as audiences knew the names and faces of the people being exposed. The era of celebrity for the sake of celebrity was born, and most of the reality TV genre grew up in order to take advantage of it. The Kardashians are the most visible examples of the insta-celebrity, but at the moment, cable networks are filled with people who are famous mostly because they're willing to get in front of a camera when lots of people are watching.