Reality shows are much cheaper to produce than sitcoms or dramas, and six years after CBS jumpstarted the modern reality show era with Survivor, audiences are still eating this stuff up: Three of the 20 most popular shows this season are unscripted.

FORBES: Magazine Article

DVDs that they can carry an entire season's worth of sitcoms, or splash high-definition films across a huge screen.

ECONOMIST: Standards wars

But if belles du jour Tina Fey and Amy Poehler can excel at TV sitcoms and movies and teach Ricky Gervais a thing or two (or three) about hosting the Golden Globes, could they be queens of the night with their own talk shows?

NPR: Late-Night Network Shows Still A White Men's Club

As a college professor, I face rooms of identically clad students who all watch the same sitcoms, have all seen that month's two or three mass-produced Hollywood films and all listen to the same six indistinguishable musical groups on the two local commercial radio stations.

ECONOMIST: Unnatural selection