‘The Challenge’ Producer Julie Pizzi Discusses Unscripted TV’s Current State

“The Challenge” and “Below Deck” aren’t just TV shows; they’re practically the unscripted-TV version of cinematic universes, spanning multiple series that run for many years. This presents a unique challenge for Julie Pizzi, the producer overseeing these franchises as president of Bunim/Murray and 51 Minds, production companies owned by French media giant Banijay.

“Betting on unscripted is a great bet because unscripted has a great price point, has such engagement with the audience, lots of fandom,” Pizzi said on a recent episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business.” “And I think that you can turn it over pretty quickly, while some of the scripted shows are so remarkable, where there’s so many scenes and so many locations that it just takes longer to create.”

The 40th season of ‘The Challenge’ is set to return to MTV on August 14th. This is just one of the four different versions of the series that run across various platforms of the Paramount Global empire.

While being less expensive than scripted content helps Pizzi get so much inventory on the air, that doesn’t mean money is no object.

“The costs have also risen,” noted Pizzi, whose other credits have included “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “The Simple Life,” and “Project Runway.” “I think really even just in the last 24 months, as we tried to keep our budgets flat or the networks try to keep our budgets flat or even sometimes decrease them, the bigger struggle is just finding ways to navigate increased flight, fuel, food, and labor costs.”

Pizzi also addressed other labor-related issues, given several recent reports regarding the reality TV industry — a relatively cheap and quick-moving corner of Hollywood often thought resilient to strikes and other industry disruptions. These issues are also explored in a new data analysis for Variety VIP+ subscribers titled “Reality TV Survived the ‘07 Writers Strike. Why Is It Hurting in 2024?”