Several cable reality shows are rewriting the vows and rules for reality TV marriage and relationship-themed shows, targeting a new generation of viewers who themselves aren’t necessarily confirming to traditional norms of love and long-term commitments.

Shows like TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé, Lifetime’s Married at First Sight, WE tv’s Love After Lockup and USA Network’s Temptation Island are drawing a substantial audience of young, mostly women viewers tuning in for escapist shows that often depict marriages and relationships in distressed and dire situations, while revealing some personal truths and issues that may exist in their own relationships.

“When the stakes are higher, you’re either rooting for or against somebody, but you’re invested in the outcome, so you tune in,” Linda Ong, chief culture officer at Civic Entertainment Group and a former Lifetime marketer, said. “People can use these high stakes to take the focus off the craziness of the real world and also make the idea of relationships a little more exciting than it may be for them.”

What’s clear is the genre is generating some big audience numbers for cable networks. One of the hottest relationship-themed franchises on cable today is TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé. Its seventh-season premiere on Nov. 3 drew 2 million viewers, second only to AMC’s The Walking Dead among all cable shows in primetime for the night.

RELATED: USA Unveils ‘Temptation Island’ Second-Season Trailer

The series, which follows couples who must get married within 90 days as part of a K-1 Visa application allowing the foreign fiancés of American citizens into the country, has also spawned five separate spinoff series. They include prequel Before the 90 Days, which averaged a series-record 3.3 million viewers for its third season earlier this year; and 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, which averaged 2.6 million viewers this past summer — the network’s highest audience for a freshman series.

Following Real-Life Journeys

“We’re tracking people in real time,” TLC senior vice president of production and development Alon Orstein said. “It’s not manufactured relationships that have been put together for TV — these are people who have found each other already, and we are basically documenting their journey.”

Also documenting the trials and tribulations of uniquely-formed married couples is WE tv’s Love After Lockup, which follows the marriages and relationships of couples after one of the partners is released from prison. The series and its spinoff show Life After Lockup — which follows couples from the original show who are still together — average more than 1 million viewers for WE tv, half of whom are in the women 25-54 demo, according to the network.

The network has green-lit new seasons for both shows.

“We are inherently interested in love stories, and they can come in a variety of different, unexpected ways, and I think there is a relatable component to it,” WE tv president Marc Juris said. “It shows relationships at different stages with people at different points in their lives. These are authentic portrayals. [The couples] understand the pressure, the danger and the appeal — when you put that all together, it makes for a very compelling story.”

The success of these shows is also inherent in the changing norms of how society views and emphasizes long-term relationships. Ong said shows like 90 Day Fiancé and Married at First Sight — which portray individuals who agree to marry when they first meet — provide a high-stakes look at love and relationships that doesn’t necessarily exist in today’s culture, particularly among millennials. With less pressure on women to define themselves by marriage and with popular dating apps offering more choices for potential partners, the emphasis on finding and securing a lifelong mate is not as strong with millennials as with prior generations.

“We know millennials are delaying marriage and families, so there isn’t that much pressure to find that one person and live happily ever after,” Ong said. “What that means is when you’re watching a reality show about relationships and marriage, what’s really entertaining is to see how high the stakes are in those shows when the cultural perception of relationships in general is much lower.”

The cultural shift in the perception of long-term relationships has forced long-running reality shows like WE tv’s Marriage Boot Camp to alter their definition of a committed relationship. The series, which last month aired its 100th episode, advises struggling couples with the input of a professional marriage counselor. Adam Freeman, president of creative and executive producer of Thinkfactory Media, which produces the Marriage Boot Camp franchise, said the show’s original premise of dealing strictly with married couples has evolved over the years to include other types of unions.

“When the show first started, we really had a very strong focus on married couples,” Freeman said of the series, which, in its 15th season, is the most-watched show in WE tv’s core demo of women 25-54. “As the show grew in popularity — and as the definition of marriage and relationships changed — we have now had all types of couples. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to committed relationships. Is it right for you?”

USA Network’s 2019 version of unscripted series Temptation Island has also bowed to the changing nature of relationships, particularly among younger viewers. The sophomore reality series, the original version of which aired on Fox from 2001-03, puts several married couples on an island alongside a group of singles to test their relationships.

“The basic premise of the show — which is, ‘are you with who you should be with?’ — hasn’t changed, but its relevance has increased,” series host Mark L. Walberg said. “Now, more than before, the temptation of whether there’s something better out there lies right on your smartphone when you look at Instagram and dating apps. All you see are the best version of filtered people out there, so the show is more relevant today than in the past.”

Unlike its first iteration, the advent of social media has helped drive the appeal of the show as viewers chat about the happenings on the island, Walberg said.

“Social media has a lot to do with the immediacy of whether viewers should watch,” he said. “If something happens on the show, the viewers immediately go to social media to talk about it.”

Exploring Social Issues

Also driving the appeal of shows like 90 Day Fiancé and Love After Lockup are underlying social issues like immigration and prison reform, according to Ong.

“90 Day Fiancé is essentially a story that in the background is about immigration, and Love After Lockup is about incarceration and the criminal justice system,” Ong said. “These are all things that are in the forefront of social issues today, but [the shows’] approach is not political. It’s a way of dealing with and understanding some very real issues in our society that most people don’t have a familiarity with. It’s still popcorn television, but the fact that its dealing with really important themes gives it a little more value for people.”

What the shows don’t always provide, according to some observers, is a healthy image of marriages and committed relationships. Marriage consultants Michelle and Dwain Daniels are concerned the genre often downplays the importance of long-term commitments by showcasing often quick fixes for couples, rather than focusing on the positives of working toward developing a long-lasting relationship.

“I don’t think the shows provide a positive image of marriage — yes, everyone goes through things and meets people differently, but the overall image of what marriage is supposed to be gets lost,” Michelle Daniels said.

RELATED: WE tv Breaks ‘Love After Lockup’ Spinoff

Added Dwain Daniels: “We’re in a society where a lot of things are instantaneous: people think there’s a quick fix for everything. But relationships take work. In some of these shows, if it doesn't work in X number of months the participants can walk away from it, and that’s not what a long-term relationship is about. At the same time, these shows are popular, and I don’t see these shows going away any time soon.”

Indeed, the beat goes on for the genre. OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network recently announced a new relationship series, #LoveGoals, in which a family and relationship therapist named Spirit advises five celebrity couples who are at a crossroads in their relationship.

“#Love Goals will be an exciting addition to the network’s Saturday-night lineup centered around love and marriage,” OWN president Tina Perry said. “Spirit’s healing approach to mending and strengthening relationships in this new weekly series will make for great television.”

Thinkfactory’s Freeman said the company has talked about further spinning off the Marriage Boot Camp series to potentially feature athletes and musicians, but only if it feels authentic to the producers and ultimately to viewers. “We’re never going to force it and do a spinoff of the show just for the sake of doing it,” he said. “It is a therapeutic show, so it has to be a segment of the population that could use our help.”

In the end, love and relationship stories are universal, TLC’s Orstein said, and there will always be an audience for content that deals authentically with the subject.

“Love is the oldest story ever told: boy meets girl, boy meets boy or girl meets girl. It’s at the core of all television and cinematic storytelling,” he said. “It’s so relatable to people — most everyone has been in a relationship — so it’s an area that, if anything, will continue to grow.”

Bravo will bring back its competition series Project Runway on Dec. 5, the network said Thursday.

The 18th season of the series, which will feature hosts Karlie Kloss, Christian Sirino and judges Nina Garcia, Brandon Maxwell and Elaine Welteroth, will feature a number of of fan-favorite elements, including “Siriano Save” and the “pièce de résistance,” according to Bravo. 

The new season will also feature within its competitors a variety of sexual preferences, racial backgrounds and ages, including a nonbinary model and a trans model, a “Dreamer,” and the oldest designer ever to compete on Project Runway.

Project Runway is produced by Magical Elves, Spyglass Media Group, and Alfred Street Industries.

History and A&E networks were the favorite cable networks for non-fiction producers to work with, according to a new survey from the Nonfiction Producers Association (NPA) released Tuesday.

The survey, which polled both NPA members and non-members from 41 production companies, tallied results from six production indicators, including preferences for pitching, executive creativity, development process, business affairs process, production editorial oversight, and production management, according to the NPA.

History and A&E topped the chart in most of the categories, while Discovery Channel, Lifetime, ID, HGTV or Travel ranked most often in third and fourth place across the categories, according to the organization.  

While the NPA said that factors such as volume of programming offered could have skewed the results more favorably to the top networks in the survey, he added that overall the survey was designed to help better the relationship between producers and networks.

“For many months, the NPA has been meeting with individual networks to further the producer-network dialog and suggest ways to improve processes,” said Ford. “This survey, which is part of that effort, is meant to be a snapshot, from a producer’s point of view, of their current business climate, and we intentionally kept it contained to the six basic areas they say most influence the production experience.

Male viewers have been the primary drivers of what has been a record-setting performance for live sports programming on cable this year.

Big-ticket live events, such as the recently completed National Basketball Association Playoffs or boxing’s May 2 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao mega pay-per-view fight, have dominated the ratings charts.

When it comes to TV’s most-watched and highest rated reality shows, though, male viewers are about as absent as LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers teammates during the NBA Finals. The latest Ratings Intelligence look at the top 30 reality shows among the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic shows just a handful of programs that can pull in a majority of men in a field dominated by female-skewing shows such as VH1’s Love and Hip Hop and Bravo’s Real Housewives franchises. (See chart)

Men long have been an elusive group for networks and advertisers to reach outside of live sports or specific programming genres such as horror, science fiction and competition or survival content. This analysis of the top reality shows over the last year — the second such annual Ratings Intelligence review in Multichannel News — reveals a void of men as relationship- themed shows have become more popular, particularly among younger viewers.

But some network and studio executives are not ready to write off the reality genre as a vehicle for reaching men.

WHICH SHOWS SKEW MALE

“Men have always been hard to reach, and it’s even harder now with the viewing habits changing,” Dirk Hoogstra, executive vice president and general manager of History, said. “But I still believe if we put on the right show and it’s a great show [male viewers] will find it and it can still break through.”

Currently, only eight of cable’s top 30 reality programs over the past 12 months among adults 18-49 (per live-plus-3-day data) skew male, including three of the top 10. Those are AMC’s live talk show Talking Dead, the top reality show and one that benefits from cable’s highest-rated series, The Walking Dead, as its lead-in; Discovery Channel’s Gold Rush, which finished third overall; and A&E’s Duck Dynasty, which was the sixth-highest-rated reality show over the past year.

Further, none of the top-rated freshman reality series in the list drew a predominately male audience.

VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood is the top-rated reality series to premiere over the past 12 months, with nearly three-fourths of its audience skewing female.

The second-highest-rated freshman reality series — Spike TV’s Lip Sync Battle — skews female even though it falls within the reality competition category, which traditionally skews heavily toward men.

E!’s Kourtney & Khloe Take the Hamptons finished third as a cable reality rookie among viewers 18-49, premiering last fall and ending this past January.

Despite the numbers, executives said reality content can reach male viewers — provided the show presents an authentic depiction of the male experience as well as subject matter that appeals to men.

“There are still a lot of male viewers out there that want to watch television,” Pilgrim Studios CEO Craig Piligian said.

Piligian should know. His studio produces two male-skewing reality shows that appear on the list, including Discovery Channel’s auto-themed Street Outlaws and Fast N’ Loud — the latter of which has the largest share of male viewers of any show on the list at 71.8%.

Piligian, who is also behind such male-skewing reality shows as Fox Sports 1’s mixed martial arts-themed The Ultimate Fighter, believes the key to drawing male viewers is to provide strong stories and characters that appeal to men.

History’s Hoogstra said male-skewing shows also need to feature some process that men are interested in, whether it’s collecting antique cars and toys in American Pickers or alligator hunting in Swamp People.

“What we’ve done the best at is finding situations that are ongoing, whether or not there’s a show associated with it,” he said. “When we introduce a new world or a new set of characters and new information they tend to respond to it.”

History is hoping a new set of male-targeted series launched over the last couple of weeks — The Woodsmen, about men who live in the forests of the Pacific Northwest; Alone, a survival series; Forged in Fire, a competition series pitting world-class blade-smiths against one another; and car restoration- themed Leepu & Pitbull — will continue to attract young men to the network.

Discovery Channel, which airs six of the eight most male-skewing shows on the top 30 list, has been successful in reaching male viewers without the benefit of sports-themed programming. Yet Matt Kelly, network vice president of development and production, said some of the network’s most popular shows (like mining-themed Gold Rush) have sports elements within the storylines that bring in male viewers.

“With Gold Rush, it’s a story of who’s up and who’s down — you’re constantly checking the characters and keeping score along the way, which really resonates with men,” he said. “We’re not building fake stakes here, so if you tell it in an organic way, it’s really about a sporting event in terms of who’s winning and losing.”

IT’S ALSO ABOUT CO-VIEWING

Other shows like competition series Naked and Afraid, in which male and female co-leads work together to survive a difficult outdoor environment, not only bring in core male viewers but help the network increase its reach to women, which helps draw a broader range of advertisers.

“Each show has to move the needle a little more, whether it’s younger or more female, while still speaking to the core,” Kelly said.

Some female-skewing networks are also turning to the reality genre to appeal to more male viewers. A&E has teamed up with Orion Entertainment (Building Alaska) for Brotherhood, a reality series in development about a family-run lodge in Alaska. The series features a strong male patriarch that the network hopes men will identify with, according to Chris Dorsey, founding partner at Orion Entertainment, the series’ studio producer.

“I think there’s always a different viewpoint on almost any subject,” Dorsey said. “If you want to introduce more male viewers you have to introduce a male character that becomes the mirror that you hold up to the male audience — he has to be credible and not a caricature.”

Whatever the genre, Discovery’s Kelly said male viewers will only tune in if the characters are believable and if they see something of themselves and their interests in the overall storyline.

“Authenticity is everything,” he said. “It’s about the contract that we have with the audience to make sure that the experience feels authentic to them.”

A.J. Katz is the editor of Ratings Intelligence, a NewBay Media-owned ratings analysis website. Visit the site atwww.ratingsintel.com.

STUDIOS TO WATCH

From the 2015 Ratings Intelligence analysis of cable’s 30 top-rated reality shows, here are three show producers whose shops stood out:

EMBASSY ROW: From AMC’s Talking Dead to Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, E!’s The Grace Helbig Show, to NBCSN’s Men in Blazers — and even Fox Sports 1’s short-lived Crowd Goes Wild — Embassy Row reigns supreme over the cable talk show landscape. The Sony Pictures TV-based shop is run by super-producer- turned soccer commentator Michael Davies. In addition to its impressive lineup of talkers, “companion programs,” and the Jerry Seinfeld-hosted Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Embassy Row is also known for its game shows. After all, Davies cut his teeth as the executive producer of ABC’s U.S version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The company is known for its extensive portfolio of game shows, including credits such as The World Series of Pop Culture for VH1, GSN’s The Newlywed Game, Pyramid and The American Bible Challenge, among others. — A.J. Katz

MONAMI ENTERTAINMENT: Monami Entertainment is the creative force behind cable’s top-rated reality franchise: Love & Hip Hop. Run by Mona Scott- Young, Monami’s programs have almost singlehandedly allowed VH1 to stay relevant in the primetime cable landscape. Season three of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta is the highest-rated installment of the franchise, and currently stands as cable’s second-highest-rated reality program over the past 12 months (after Talking Dead). Season four of Atlanta was down from three, but still ranks as a top five reality program during the same time span, and often won Monday nights in the 18-49 demographic. The fifth season of the original Love & Hip Hop: New York is a top 15 unscripted cable program, sitting right behind rookie spinoff Love & Hip Hop Hollywood in the 18-49 hierarchy. The most-recent season of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta Afterparty Live (the companion to Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta) stands as a top-20 reality program over the past 12 months. Season one of K. Michelle: My Life, a spinoff of Atlanta featuring one of its lead personalities, aired last November and December, and stands as a top-25 cable reality program. It returns for its sophomore season later this year. — A.J. Katz

PILGRIM STUDIOS: Pilgrim Studios is one of the most successful and prolific producers of unscripted reality shows on both cable and broadcast television. The company offers more than 25 reality show that run the gamut of genres including car-themed shows like Discovery Channel’s Fast N’ Loud to mixed martial arts shows like Ultimate Fighter.  While Pilgrim’s more widely-known content skews more male, the studio also has a feminine touch with programming like OWN’s Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, which follows the soul food business of an African-American St. Louis woman. Under the tutelage of CEO Craig Piligian, the studio is also breaking out into scripted fare with the fall launch of Recovery Road on ABC Family. The series chronicles the plight of a young woman recovering from substance abuse. — R. Thomas Umstead

To see the MCN Reality Hot 30, please click here.

A.J. Katz of Ratings Intelligence also contributed to this story.

Tattoos are making a mark on the reality-TV genre.

For decades, “tats” or “ink” carried a stigma as deviant marks worn by criminals, bikers and rock musicians, an unambiguous sign of a person’s wild side.

But these days, tattoos are coming out of the sleeve: One out of every five Americans sports at least one tattoo on their bodies, according to a 2012 Harris Interactive report.

The tattoo industry is now a $1.65 billion dollar business with more than 21,000 parlors operating in the U.S., according to the online Tattoo Statistics website. People from virtually every demographic are proudly displaying their tats with few inhibitions. Tattoos were once an automatic disqualification for most jobs. Now cops, bankers, executives — and writers — are showing off their body ink.

And it’s not even mostly men. An Oxygen Media survey in 2012 revealed that 59% of tattoo-wearers are women, with the most popular images those of hearts and angels. Tattoos are also prevalent with young people: About 36% of all adults 18 to 25 have at least one tattoo, while 40% of adults 26 to 40 are inked, according to the Pew Research Center.

Getting “inked” has become a trend in large part due to changing social standards, particularly among young people. In a Harris poll, the number of people who said adults with tattoos are more likely to do something most people consider deviant has dropped to 24% from 29% in 2008, and the number of people who said it makes no difference whether someone has a tattoo has gone up to 74% from 69%.

Millennials see their favorite celebrities sporting animals, kids’ names and other images on their backs, arms and legs. In today’s entertainment world, it’s rare to find a celebrity who doesn’t wear some form of tattoo, while performers such as R&B singer Rihanna, movie star Angelina Jolie and singer Chris Brown sport nine tattoos or more. The biggest sports athletes are also sporting multiple tattoos, from basketball’s LeBron James to baseball’s Josh Hamilton to soccer’s David Beckham.

Naturally, tattoos need to be shown to be appreciated, so many are ending up on reality television. “The proliferation of tattoo shows corresponds with the growing popularity of tattoos in our culture,” Shelly Tatro, senior vice president of development and programming for A&E, said. Her network was one of the first to jump into the tattoo-based reality series genre with Inked in 2005. The network currently airs Epic Ink, which follows the exploits of the charismatic staff of the Oregon-based Area 51 Tattoo parlor.

“Series like Epic Ink are successful, not just because of the incredible talent of these artists, but also the characters and the stories behind the tattoos they create,” Tatro said.

More than a half-dozen tattoo or body-painting shows are currently on network schedules, ranging from intense and dramatic competition series (GSN’s Skin Wars, Spike TV’s Ink Master and Syfy’s Face Off) to shows focusing on charismatic owners and workers at tattoo parlors (Oxygen’s Tattoos After Dark and Epic Ink). At least one show explores correcting or removing unwanted body ink (Spike’s Tattoo Nightmares Miami.) And Ink Master was Spike’s second-highest-rated show in 2013.

Viewers are fascinated by the subculture and mystique of the tattoo and body-painting industry, and that interest is inking strong ratings for cable networks, programming executives said. “The genre has become a huge trend, and it’s been very successful for us with Tattoo Nightmares (and spinoff series Tattoo Nightmares: Miami) and Ink Master,” Chris Rantamaki, senior vice president of original series for Spike, said. “That’s part of the trend — not only is the artwork amazing, but we search for the best of the best.”

Tattooed Americans seem infatuated with permanent body art, even if it means running the risk of getting a less-than-flattering result. In a recent casting call for Ink Master, Spike drew some 15,000 applicants as well as dozens of people lining up to be “human canvasses,” according to Rantamaki.

“It always amazes me that people will line up to get specific tattoos that we commission for the series,” he said. “For a guy with no tattoos, I can appreciate the art, but when it doesn’t go well [those people] are walking away with tattoos that will probably be with them for the rest of their lives, so the stakes are big.”

Rantamaki said the network’s tattoo shows also draw an even split of male and female viewers, which may seem unusual considering that the tattoo phenomenon is perceived to be more targeted to males. A poll conducted by Oxygen Media in 2012 said that 85% of those surveyed believed that more men sport tattoos than women.

BODY AS CANVAS

Nonetheless, female-skewing Oxygen pulled in female viewers to a pair of series, Tattoos After Dark and Best Ink. Tattoos After Dark, which chronicles a Los Angeles-based tattoo parlor and the unique characters that frequent it late at night, averaged 546,000 viewers during its freshman run earlier this past summer. Competition series Best Ink drew 613,000 viewers in its third season, which ended this past February. Both series were above the 415,000 total viewers the network averaged in primetime last year, according to Nielsen.

The tattoo craze has spawned another genre that has caught the attention of viewers: body painting.

The genre, in which creative artists use the human body as a canvas to paint designs, has been showcased recently in Hollywood through Rebecca Romijn and Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of blue-colored shapechanger Mystique in the popular X-Men film franchise. “There is a subculture of body painters out there and people are really interested in subcultures,” GSN executive vice president of programming Amy Introcaso-Davis said.

Viewers have recently taken interest in GSN’s Skin Wars body-painting series. The competition series, hosted by Romijn, pits body painters against each other in a series of creative skill tests. Its Aug. 6 premiere drew a network-series record 700,000 viewers.

Introcasco-Davis said the competitive nature of the series, combined with the painters’ artistry and skill, has also drawn a record number of young viewers to the channel, which also features reruns of such classic game shows as The $20,000 Pyramid.

“The [genre] is appealing to an audience that’s at the younger end of the spectrum and much younger than our audience,” she said. “It definitely has a much younger appeal.”

The tattoo and body-painting genres won’t fade too fast, Introcaso-Davis said. She said she expects more networks to jump on the bandwagon.

“There’s more room for competition shows in the genre like this,” she said. “The interesting thing about body painting, unlike tattoos, is that you can use the whole body. It makes the artwork much more extraordinary because there’s a bigger canvas to cover.”

Networks that were initially reluctant to look at that tattoo culture because it was too niche-oriented will soon realize that ink is more mainstream than people think, Spike’s Rantamaki added.

“We don’t want to oversaturate the genre, but we’ve had success where others have not,” he said. “We’ve really respected the tattoo culture.”

R&B and hip-hop music have changed the tune of the reality genre as shows featuring successful, recognizable and often outspoken music stars climb the cableratings charts.

Shows like VH1’s Love & Hip Hop, WE tv’s Braxton Family Values and TV One’s R&B Divas have found an audience among young viewers — and African-Americans in particular — by showcasing the behind-the-scenes lives of popular past and present hitmakers who were previously only known for their songs.

Executives said the drama and intrigue that follows the lives of a Toni Braxton, Erica Atkins-Campbell or K. Michelle — along with the music they create — provides a successful one-two punch that has struck a chord with viewers.

“The characters in the [R&B and hip-hop] genre are definitely larger-than-life characters that have big personalities, big aspirations and live pretty large, which is all great for television and storytelling,” WE tv president Marc Juris said. “It is character driven, and the music is the articulation of the stakes.”

While the music plays an important role in drawing fans who are familiar with an artist’s hit songs, it’s the personalities of the performers themselves — and their struggles in dealing with personal and business relationships — that have captured viewers, D’Angela Proctor, senior vice president of programming and production for TV One, said. The network’s R&B Divas: Atlanta and spinoff series R&B Divas: Los Angeles — about R&B singers including Angie Stone, Keke Wyatt, Chante Moore and Michel’le, who are looking to build or resurrect their careers — are the African-American-targeted network’s most watched shows.

The singers’ collaborations as they work on projects together often leads to heated disputes and disagreements, but also showcases their hard work and the less glamorous aspects of their off stage lives.

“Of course, you hear the songs on the radio, but you really want to know what’s behind the curtain,” Proctor said. “Up to this point, there was really no opportunity to get to know our R&B talent on a personal, oneon- one basis.”

Given hip-hop and R&B’s influence on pop culture, some of the performers on these shows have transcended the reality space and become cultural touchpoints themselves. Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta stars Mimi Faust and Nikko Smith made headlines with the release of a self-produced sex tape that went viral and became a leading storyline when the VH1 show’s third season premiered last month.

Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta is averaging 3.6 million viewers thus far in 2014. The original Love & Hip Hop series also remains among VH1’s top shows, averaging 3.5 million viewers.

A third music genre-based series, T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle, has also drawn big numbers for VH1, averaging 2.4 million viewers in its fourth season.

“We’re kind of peeling back some of the drama and life stages that people go through, and because of that people appreciate that amplified approach to storytelling in the music space,” VH1 president Tom Calderone said. “If the personality is there and if a compelling storyline is there, it should make for a good recipe for good TV.”

WE tv’s Thursday-night lineup is given over to music-themed reality series including Braxton Family Values, about the R&B music family; Mary, Mary, following Grammywinning gospel duo Erica Atkins-Campbell and Tina Atkins-Campbell; and SWV: Reunited, which showcases the reunion and comeback of the 1990s female R&B trio.

The keys to these shows’ success — all three series are averaging more than 1.1 million viewers this year — has been the combination of characters viewers can identify and relate to, and music that’s familiar to the audience, Juris said.

“For someone like Toni Braxton, who had a great story going in, we knew that she was having some financial trouble and we knew she had some great hits that we all loved,” he said. “Her life was fascinating because we knew there was a story that was running parallel to her music. Her music is what makes you connect to her, but it’s the story that holds you.”

The music alone won’t draw an audience without a star’s compelling personal storyline. “You will never fool and audience — if your goal is to sell a record, your show will fail,” Juris said. “Audiences want shows, stories and characters that they care about. If your goal is to tell a story, your show will succeed.”

Cherie Saunders, TV editor of black entertainment news website EurWeb.com, said musical elements can only sell the show if the performers come off as authentic.

“It’s entertaining to see the groups that you’ve grown up on and liked and to sing their songs, but I think the authenticity of the personalities within those groups is the most important thing,” she said. “The drama that is inherent in their relationships has to be authentic — whether it’s positive or negative — and I think that’s what draws people to reality programming in general.”

In Tune for June

June is Black Music Month, and several cable networks will celebrate with a number of reality series premieres, specials and documentaries honoring and showcasing iconic soul music stars as well as up-and-coming artists. Here’s a partial list of programs highlighting the celebration:

June 2-15

Main Stage (Music Choice On Demand):

Music-video content from R&B stars Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott , Charlie Wilson and Tank

June 11

The Message (BET):

Four-part documentary series

June 14

Super Bowl Celebration of Gospel (Centric): Special

June 15

Marian Anderson Lincoln Memorial Concert (Centric): Special

June 16-29

Main Stage (Music Choice On Demand): Music videos from emerging acts Sebastian Mikael and P.J. Morton

June 21

Top 25 Black Movie Soundtracks (Centric): Special

Aretha: Frankly Speaking (TV One): Special

HelloBeautiful Interludes Live: Trey Songz (TV One): Special

June 29

BET Awards (BET): Special

Also:

Music Choice will spotlight the upcoming Essence Music Festival in New Orleans with videos featuring performances from R&B singers such as Tamar Braxton, K. Michelle Mary J. Blige, Sevyn Streeter and Trey Songz.

Throughout the month, Aspire will air “ASPiRE Jam Session,” a series of vignett es featuring acoustic musical performances from such artists as Joe, Avery*Sunshine, Clinton Babers II and Mr. Sho’Nuff.