Get the latest gossip
How Disney Found Its Reality Sweet Spot on Streaming
“It’s almost like separating real gold from fool’s gold,” says the veteran exec behind ABC’s and Hulu’s unscripted shows.
She texted me and said, “You have to do something with these swinging Mormon TikTok moms.”— Rob MillsFiguring out how to make unscripted originals work for streaming was obviously critical for Disney — particularly since the company completely missed the cable reality era that turned networks such as Bravo, TLC/Discovery, and MTV/VH1 into content factories for rival conglomerates NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. But Mills and his colleagues have also spent the last four years working on ways to blur the lines between Disney’s linear and streaming properties in order to maximize audience potential for the company’s unscripted assets. Over the course of two recent interviews that stretched to nearly two hours, the exec explained how he is managing the wonderful world of Disney reality TV, a kingdom that includes everything from booze-soaked, sometimes-controversial dating shows ( The Bachelor and its spinoffs) and ripped-from-the-algorithms soaps ( Mormon Wives, The Kardashians) to a surprisingly enduring collection of Gen-X-coded game-show reboots like the just-announced Match Game.
Or read this on VULTURE