NBCUniversal Television and Streaming said it hired Corie Henson as executive VP, entertainment unscripted content.

Henson, who had been with WarnerMedia where she oversaw unscripted programming for TNT, TBS and TruTV as executive VP. She replaces Jenny Broom who left NBCU.

In her new post, Henson will oversee reality competition, talent competition and game show formats -- including America’s Got Talent, The Voice, Top Chef and Baking It -- and report to Susan Rovner, NBCU Chairman for entertainment content.

“Corie is one of the most respected executives in the business and brings a resume overflowing with big unscripted hits that have broken out across broadcast, streaming and cable platforms,” said Rovner. “Her deep experience with large volumes of programming across multiple networks and brands is a perfect fit for our NBCU content ecosystem. She’s joining an incredible group of programming leaders working across genres, and we’re excited to welcome her to  the team.”

Before WarnerMedia, Henson was executive VP for alternative entertainment at Fox, watching over The Masked Singer, MasterChef, So You Think You Can Dance, Hell’s Kitchen, Beat Shazam with Jamie Fox and all live event specials.

“I've always admired the NBCU unscripted portfolio – and grew up on Must See TV – so I’m thrilled by the opportunity  to join this incredible team to nurture this slate of massively successful shows, take risks on developing new innovative programming, and, of course, continue championing the best producers in the business,” Henson said. ■

Robert Mills has been named executive VP, unscripted and alternative entertainment for Walt Disney Co.

Mills, who had been senior VP, alternative series, specials & late-night programming, ABC Entertainment, will see his duties expanded as head Walt Disney Television Alternative, a new production unit for unscripted programming. He will also add oversight of new oversight of Hulu Originals unscripted and documentaries and ABC daytime programming.

Mills will report to Craig Erwich, president of Hulu Originals and ABC Entertainment, and Craig Hunegs, president of entertainment for Walt Disney Television.

“Rob is a respected and accomplished innovator in the unscripted business and his success is reflected in the countless hours of compelling content he has long championed,” said Erwich. “This promotion is not only a well-earned next step in his career, it also demonstrates our commitment to the type of groundbreaking programming that Rob’s team is known for.”

Mills joined ABC’s Alternative department in 2003, where he’s been responsible for shows including American Idol, Shark Tank and The Bachelor, as well as late night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials and The Oscars.

“I am honored to be leading this new enterprise as our company continues its efforts to grow the direct-to-consumer business and build on our success at ABC,” said Mills. “I am incredibly grateful to Dana Walden, Craig Erwich and Craig Hunegs for this tremendous opportunity and look forward to collaborating with the talented teams within this expanded portfolio to develop and produce a higher volume of culturally defining unscripted television.”

Lionsgate said that it has extended its overall television deal with unscripted producers Katy Wallin and Stephanie Bloch Chambers and their production company, Wallin Chambers Entertainment.

The company’s docu-dramedy House of Ho debuts Thursday on HBO Max and its docu-comedy De Viaje Con Los Derbez was renewed for a second season. 

They will continue to develop and produce original series for broadcast networks, cable platforms and premium streamers, Lionsgate said.

“Katy and Stephanie are incredibly talented producers and great partners for our content,” said Alice Dickens-Koblink, Lionsgate senior VP and head of unscripted programming. “We’re very proud of the projects which we have already collaborated on and are excited to extend our relationship to bring more fun, diverse and heartfelt premium series to our unscripted programming slate.”

“We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Lionsgate, a company that shares our vision for creating high-quality series that cultivate unique and diverse voices and embraces culturally enriching stories,” said Wallin and Chambers. “We strive to make audiences laugh and cry with us through our content while examining the world around them, and we look forward to creating more exciting and talent-driven unscripted projects together.”

MTV has renewed its reality series Jersey Shore Family Vacation for a fourth season, the network said Thursday.

The series, a spinoff of the network’s popular series Jersey Shore, finished its third season on a ratings high, drawing 1.7 million viewers on a Nielsen Live+3 basis for its June 18 season finale. The show also performed well among young viewers, posting a 9% increase season to season among adults 18-34.

The news comes as MTV recently launched two Thursday primetime unscripted series, Double Shot at Love and Revenge Prank with DJ Pauly D and Vinny.

OWN will continue to build on its relationship-themed original programming lineup with a new unscripted series, Love Goals.

The series will follow family and relationship therapist Spirit as she counsels five celebrity couples who are at the crossroads in their relationships. Love Goals will focus on such challenges that range from fame and power, infidelity and communications issues, as well as overcoming childhood trauma, according to OWN.

OWN has renewed four shows from its original unscripted lineup including freshman series Love & Marriage: Huntsville and veteran series Black Love, the network announced Thursday.

Other freshman unscripted series returning for a second season include Black Women OWN the Conversation and Ready to Love, according to the network.

Black Love, which highlight honest, emotional and sometimes awkward love stories from the Black community featuring mostly married celebrity and real-life couples, will return for a fourth season, said OWN.

“We are thrilled to continue building our unscripted slate with the return of these fan favorite series,” said OWN president Tina Perry in a statement. “These shows collectively tell real stories that deeply resonate with our audience, and we are proud to create authentic content that’s relatable to our viewers. We look forward to keep exploring love in African American relationships.” 

Lifetime in June will launch a spinoff from A&E’s successful series Live PD that will shine a light on female officers.

The 20-episode series, Live PD Presents: Women On Patrol, will follow female law enforcement officers around the country including departments in Jackson, Wyo.; Wilmington, N.C.; Tempe, Ariz.; and Stockton, Calif., as well as officers featured on Live PD, said network officials. 

Live PD producers Big Fish Entertainment will produce the spinoff series, which will debut June 4, said the network.

Related: How Twitter Engagement Has Cemented ‘Live PD’ as the ‘Cops’ for a New Millennium

Also premiering on that date is the fourth season of unscripted series Escaping Polygamy, which follows the lives of sisters Andrea, Jessica and Shanell, who daringly left The Kingston Clan, a powerful polygamous group based in Salt Lake City, Utah, known as “The Order.” 

In the upcoming season the sisters help followers of other polygamous groups escape, including those in The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Apostolic United Brethren, according to network officials.

Escaping Polygamy is produced by RIVR Media, with Dee Haslam, Rob Lundgren, and Lori Stryer serving as executive producers.

This is being called the golden age of TV programming for scripted shows, in particular.

More shows than ever are being produced, viewers are binge watching them hours at a time through video on demand and streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. And media companies are making piles of cash licensing shows to streaming services, or using them to build their own subscription businesses.

Nonfiction programming has always been a bit of a stepchild in the programming world. People watch, sure. But even the best reality doesn’t get the same acclaim. Nor is it seeing the same kind of demand in this era of peak TV.

All of which leads to the question: What is reality programming’s value in an increasingly on-demand world?

While some nonfiction programming appears on Netflix and Hulu, the opportunities have been more limited.

“With respect to the subscription video-on-demand space, there has been no interest at this particular time in any of the reality types of programming,” one studio executive said.

Unlike networks, which need to fill a programming grid, buyers in an on-demand world are looking for shows that will give their services cachet and recruit and retain subscribers. “Reality is popular on networks, but it’s still viewed as voyeuristic. It’s not necessarily high-end programming,” the studio executive said.

Finding Viewers on SVOD
But as subscription services proliferate and mature, their attitude toward nonfiction could be changing. Viewers are watching more reality shows on demand. Streaming services are showing more interest in creating their own unscripted programming and adding existing shows to their offerings.

According to comScore, the top 10 rated reality programs for the 2016-17 broadcast season garnered more than 66 million VOD transactions, up 26% from the prior broadcast season’s reality programs. The gain came as overall VOD transactions dipped 3% from the prior year.

“I talk to people who produce shows for Discovery, Scripps Networks and A+E [Networks], and they all say they’re getting more interest from SVOD,” MoffettNathanson Research analyst Michael Nathanson said. “Given the price of scripted programming is going up, they’re looking at unscripted, which is less expensive, so they can raise their margins.”

Hulu currently pitches subscribers what it calls the largest offering of unscripted programming available on a streaming platform, with thousands of episodes from Scripps Networks, A+E and NBCUniversal.

“As SVOD programmers, we are always looking for content that will drive subscriber growth and keep viewers engaged,” Hulu vice president of content consumption Lisa Holme said. “We see unscripted series as an excellent driver of engagement and consumption, which correlate highly with retention. In the case of Hulu, we uniquely have a very robust advertising business, and so driving lots of hours of consumption is a priority for us, and unscripted can be a cost-effective way to balance the overall portfolio of content.”

Holme said Hulu subscribers watch a lot of unscripted programming. It accounts for a double-digit share of overall consumption on the service. “Outside of catching up on the latest episode of current series — The Voice, The Bachelor, etc. — we see a lot of viewing of character-based reality and competition-based reality, as well as, more recently, … food, home, travel-related series,” she said.

Prior seasons of broadcast series such as CBS’s Survivor and Amazing Race are popular, too. “People are often surprised that prior seasons of those series, as well as series like [Real] Housewives and [Keeping Up With the] Kardashians are consumed as much as they are on Hulu,” Holme said.

Netflix did not return calls seeking comment on nonfiction programming. Netflix’s reality offerings include Skin Wars, Tornado Hunters, America’s Funniest Home Videos and Undercover Boss.

Audiences as Loyal as Scripted Fans
TV networks say unscripted shows attract loyal audiences just like scripted programs.

“People want to be entertained, whether by scripted or unscripted,” Nancy Daniels, president and general manager of Discovery Communications’ s TLC, said. “They seek out what connects with them. We’ve seen big success with our shows even in this landscape where there are so many choices.”

While it’s harder to get viewers to watch reruns, Daniels said people watch old episodes of series like Little People, Big World to see what the characters looked like when they were younger. “The twins, Jeremy and Zack, have gotten married. They’re having children of their own. But you can go back to when they were 10 years old, starting out,” she said.

While TLC shows still get the bulk of their viewership on the linear channel, the shows that do best on the network also do best on demand or on the TLC Go app. TLC this year created an original spinoff of its 90 Day Fiancé franchise for the app called 90 Day Fiancé: What Now. “It’s been a huge driver for us on Go,” Daniels said.

Off-channel viewing is becoming an important factor in deciding which TLC series get renewed, Daniels said. “We’re not just looking at linear ratings anymore; we’re looking at overall audience engagement,” she said. “That’s certainly been an evolution for us over the last couple of years.”

App viewing is one way Discovery Communications is monetizing its mainly nonfiction programming.

“When it comes to Discovery unscripted, ours has tremendous value,” Discovery Communications chief commercial officer Paul Guyardo said.

Guyardo said that about 40% of what’s being watched on Discovery’s Go apps is library content, as opposed to current series. “Forty percent is a lot bigger than we thought,” he said.

For series on Investigation Discovery, people are streaming episodes they’ve already seen, “to pick up on clues that they didn’t catch the first time,” Guyardo said.

Discovery Communciations is not selling its programming to Netflix. It does have some shows on Hulu. The company is focusing on getting its core networks included on skinny bundles being offered by virtual distributors being rolled out by Hulu, DirecTV, YouTube and others.

Guyardo insists there’s demand for Discovery’s unscripted programing. “It’s our choice not to sell it in pieces, but rather to feature it all on our own digital platform or in skinny bundles, so we’re getting all the shows’ branding and equity.”

He added that Discovery’s programming is a good deal. “If you look at it relative to what distributors are paying for sports or paying for scripted, I would say we are an exceptionally good value.”

Producers said the subscription services are coming to them looking for original unscripted shows.

“Nonfiction may not be as sexy, but it’s very, very cost-effective,” said John Ford, a former Discovery executive and now general manager of NPACT, a trade association representing non-fiction programmers with about 100 member companies. “So you look at broadcast and cable any time of year, you take out sports programming, and many of the top 10, top 15, top 20 programs are nonscripted.

“You can create a pretty good nonscripted show for three or four hundred thousand dollars an hour,” Ford said. “On an hourly basis, you’re spending $3 million to create a scripted show. So you get 10 times the programming for your dollars in nonscripted.”

Ford pointed out there are already documentaries about food and wine on Netflix. Netflix has commissioned the producer of the acclaimed series Planet Earth to make an eight-part series, Our Planet, due to appear in 2019.

Netflix also has some older off-network nonfiction shows as well. “It’s interesting to look, just to troll through Netflix and see all the nonfiction shows that are there,” Ford said. “You’ll find inventory that I was executive producer on back in 2005 and 2006 still lurking in the inventory somewhere.”

Ford said the production of nonfiction programming for Netflix and the other streaming services flies under the radar because the shows don’t involve big stars and budgets. “What’s going on in nonfiction doesn’t necessarily claim the headlines, but I can tell you our members are actively pitching and producing for all of the OTT services,” Ford said.

Digital Is Key to The Workshop
Tom Farrell, CEO and executive producer for The Workshop, said his company is banking on selling shows to on-demand services. Last year, Amazon Prime green-lighted a series about tennis star Novak Djokovic produced by The Workshop, with Farrell as one of the executive producers.

“Everything that we develop has an eye on the digital world now,” Farrell said. “So while we’re still finding homes in the linear space, you would be foolish not to be looking at the digital component of our business.”

Production standards for on-demand shows might be higher than those for networks. “The viewer is so much more demanding because they’re going to it consciously, rather than stumbling upon it setting there on the couch riffing through the channels,” Farrell said. “You make a conscious decision, so I think your expectations are higher.”

Highly touted Los Angeles Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball won’t play his first nationally televised regular season National Basketball Association game until Oct. 19. But 8 million Facebook Watch users already know who Ball is — along with his loquacious father, LaVar, and his talented siblings — after they tuned in last month to the first episode of the social media site’s new sports reality series, Ball in the Family.

That makes Ball only the latest face both on the court and in a unique content sub-genre. Active and former professional athletes are scoring on the basic cable, reality docuseries field through popular, social media-friendly unscripted shows that focus on the often-unpublicized personal lives of players.

Series such as VH1’s long-running series Basketball Wives — which follows the wives, ex-wives and girlfriends of star NBA players — and E!’s Total Divas, which chronicles the out-of-ring exploits of pro wrestling outfit WWE’s female Superstars, are shining a rare, off-the-field spotlight on famous athletes that’s usually reserved for pop entertainment stars and celebrities.

Related: The Unscripted TV Issue >‘Live PD’ Draws Viewers, and Not All Watch Live

Network executives and show producers said such shows offer a one-two viewing punch by delivering female viewers attracted to the often salacious drama created between athletes and their significant others, and men who want to see their favorite players in a different light.

“We’ve seen tons of reality shows featuring celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, and their celebrity families, but to actually go behind the scenes of an athlete’s life and see what they go through is different,” said Jeff Jenkins, co-president of entertainment and development for Bunim/Murray Productions, which produces Total Divas. “They are trying to support their family; they’re trying to have romantic relationships; they’re trying to advance their careers — rarely do you see that side of them on the screen.”

Glimpse at an Athlete’s Home Team
Indeed, most sports-themed docuseries follow the lives of athletes as they pertain to the on-field action, whether its preparing for a big fight, competing in the heat of the action or basking in the glow of victory or the anguish of a loss. But for most sports-reality series, the field of play is a backdrop to the interactions athletes have with their spouses, girlfriends and families, far away from the bright lights of the stadium.

“Most people just see the athletes when they perform, but there’s a lot of interest in their personal lives,” said Amber Mazzola, president of Machete Productions, responsible for E!’s reality series franchise WAGS (Wives and Girlfriends of Sports Stars). “You see athletes like Tom Brady and [his wife] Gisele [Bündchen] in newspapers in the gossip section — people just love to hear about them on and off the court.”

Related: Reality Joins TV’s Revival Movement

E!’s WAGS L.A. series, which returns for a third season Nov. 1, has spawned two other series — WAGS Miami and WAGS Atlanta — and all of them follow the personal lives of such players as NFL stars Antonio Gates and Julius Peppers and UFC fighter Tito Ortiz. Mazzola said the show has found its niche with E!’s female-skewing fans, and male viewers enjoying a different glimpse at the players. 

“Our audience is still predominantly female, and I don’t think guys are really tuning into the drama of what these wives are going through, but I do think that the fact that these athletes are actually on the show is a draw,” Mazzola added. “I think that a lot of guys tune in because they want to see Julius Peppers or to see Antonio Gates because for them that’s really cool.”

Related: Women Get in the Game

Ball in the Family executive producer and Bunim/Murray Productions vice president of current programming Farnaz Farjam also said that the series, which launched on Facebook Sept. 1, has generated equal amounts of viewer feedback from men and women, although she would not offer up specific gender breakdown numbers.

She did say the first episode of the series drew 8 million streams, which exemplifies the growing audience interest in and fascination for the Los Angeles-based Ball family, much of which has been driven by the often-outlandish comments of father LaVar Ball regarding the talents of his three basketball-playing kids.

Bringing Fans to the Games
Such sports reality shows can turn more female viewers on to live sports content, Farjam said, adding that women may want to extend their experience with the series by watching the star athletes on the field of play.

“Of course guys will watch the games, but if their girlfriends are watching the series, then they’ll be more inclined to watch the Lakers because they’ve fallen in love with ’Zo,” she said.

Related: Spin It to Win It: Cable Networks Find Ratings Gold in Reality-Series Offshoots

Total Divas also generates strong co-viewing numbers for E!, as the cast of female WWE Superstars attract predominately male pro-wrestling fans as well as the network’s core female audience, according to Bunim/Murray’s Jenkins. Nearly four in 10 viewers (38%) of Total Divas' audience are male, the highest male composition across any of E!’s original franchises. Total Divas spinoff series Total Bellas has the second highest male compositon on the network with 32%, according to network officials.

The network will launch season seven of Total Divas on Nov. 1, with the season finale marking the show’s 100th episode.

E! hopes the upcoming season can match or surpass last year’s average 1 million viewers in Nielsen live-plus-3 ratings.

Other entertainment networks are looking to jump into the sports reality arena. Hallmark Channel will launch its first-ever, personality-focused reality series with the 2018 debut of Meet the Peetes, which focuses on the lives of former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete and his wife, actress Holly Robinson-Peete.

“When we think about programming that makes people feel good, celebrates the human spirit and family by telling a great story, Meet the Peetes fits all of those criteria,” Hallmark Network executive VP of programming Michelle Vicary said. “It is a family story about a father who was an NFL football player and a mom that’s an actor, but its also a family story that focuses on a mom and a dad that have an autistic son and have made it their life’s work to bring awareness around autism.”

Hallmark also hopes the series will add male viewers to its normally female-skewing audience. Along with the series, Rodney Peete will be involved in the network’s annual Super Bowl counterprogramming special, Kitten Bowl, according to Vicary.

“Rodney Peete is much beloved by sports fans, so I hope that men who are fans of his will come with their wives and sit and watch the series,” she said.

Bunim/Murray’s Jenkins believes that more networks are beginning to see the appeal of athlete-based reality series and will look to develop future series in the genre. One issue that could sack the genre’s forward momentum is whether athletes — as well as the organized sports they play for — will be willing to risk tarnishing their respective brands by airing an athlete’s potentially controversial personal life on television.

“I think if the individual athletes and the individual athletic organizations make themselves open to it, absolutely viewers, buyers and production companies want to do more of this type of programming,” Jenkins said, adding that the company is working on a potential reality docuseries with a retired Los Angeles Lakers player, although he would not reveal specifics.

“The fine line for those athletes and for those other organizations, however, is whether they can balance the image and brand and still allow a documentary crew to follow the ups and downs of a particular individual and organization.”

That, of course, would mean athletes and teams experiencing the kind of “winning” or “losing” only reality stars know about.

Lifetime has added four unscripted series to its lineup. 

The new series include Born in the Wild, a show about natural child birth in the wild; Girlfriend Intervention, a series in which four African-American women give one white woman a makeover each episode; Kosher Soul, which follows the relationship between O’Neal McKnight and Miriam Sternoff; and Threads, a fashion design competition series. 

Hour long series Born in the Wild, Girlfriend Intervention, and Threads have each been ordered for eight episodes, while the half-hour Kosher Soul has given a 12-episode order. 

Lifetime has also unveiled three additional unscripted projects currently in development, including dental makeover show Smile, reality competition series Worst Stylist Ever and a reality show focusing on a modeling agency entitled Ugly Models. 

“As we continue to raise the bar across all of our programming, unscripted is playing an important role in placing Lifetime in the cultural zeitgeist and introducing the network to the next generation of viewers,” said Rob Sharenow, executive vice president and general manager of Lifetime, in a statement. 

Lifetime has ordered eight episodes of a new competition series called Child Genius.

The series, which focuses on children and families preparing for a national intelligence competition, was created in cooperation with the American MENSA organization. 

The series has been adapted from the UK version, which aired last year on Channel 4. The US version is produced by Shed Media US. Pam Healey, John Hesling and Dan Snook executive produce the series, as well as Lifetime’s Eli Lehrer, Mary Donahue and David Hillman. 

The series is currently casting and is scheduled to premiere later this year, after the intelligence competition takes place this summer.