Month: March 2016

Whether it’s a table-flipping catfight or stinging allegations of a marital affair between castmates, the bar keeps getting raised for reality television year after year. But particularly in the Black community, a chorus of critics have accused shows like Real Housewives of Atlanta and Love & Hip Hop of propagating painful racial stereotypes, especially regarding Black women, in order to drive ratings. In the following open letter written exclusively for BET.com, Carlos King, executive producer of Real Housewives of Atlanta and Hollywood Divas, answers his critics.

I often get asked the question, “Do you have any guilt for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Black women on reality television?” And my answer is always a simple: No. I then always ask myself if my white counterparts get asked the same question, and I highly doubt they do, so why the double standard?

We have good news for you. You can have a cool career and make a good living. No need to choose between loving your job and paying your mortgage. The following profile, part of the BlackEnterprise.com Cool Jobs series, offers a peek into the nuts and bolts, perks and salaries behind enjoyable careers. As a young kid

Carlos King (@kingdomlos) was obsessed with watching television. When his brothers were out playing basketball, and his sisters were doing their own thing he was inside tuned into Teen Summit with Anonda Lewis (who he credits with inspiring him to pursue television) and Montell Williams.

Watching daytime television shows as a child has led to great success in the reality TV arena. With hit shows such as the “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” “Real Housewives of New Jersey,” “Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta,” “I Dream of Ne-Ne,” as well as “Oprah’s Season 25: Behind the Scenes,” King is living up to his name. Head of his own production company Kingdom Reign Entertainment, this TV professional phenom is positioning his organization to stay at the top of the reality TV market.

“Carlos,” you might say. “Carlos, me and my man are gonna break up.” Carlos King listens attentively. He mmhms. He’s there for you. Then he says: “So, you wanna do Thursday at 1 p.m.? You wanna do it at Trump Towers? You wanna talk to one of your girlfriends about it now?”

Then, he rushes into action to make it happen. King is a 36-year-old star reality-television producer who’s made his name by owning the seductive and salacious market of Atlanta, Georgia. King was the executive producer of the wildly popular, positively cult-classic Real Housewives of Atlanta — which has regularly grabbed more than 3 million viewers over its seven seasons so far. Now Housewives continues on without him; he’s working on two new brainchildren: Selling It in the ATL, following the lives of female real estate agents trying to outcompete one another to hawk their wares, and The Next 15, which invites erstwhile reality television stars to try for another shot.

Depending on your palate, The Next 15 is either as delicious as reality programming gets, or as distasteful. Either way, it represents a new trend that King refers to as “breaking the fourth wall” — producers have decided the new frontier for reality is to put themselves on screen. King is on camera, as a “transparent” producer for some 20 or 30 percent of every show, he tells me. He was partially inspired by the Lifetime sleeper hit Unreal — a scripted show that looks behind the scenes of a Bachelor-esque series. You’ve gotta admire the artistry: Like a cinematographer, King has identified another camera angle, another way to engineer drama.

TV One today announced production has begun on “The Next 15,” a docu-series following the lives of six reality stars whose infamous television debuts have come and gone.

Currently filming in Los Angeles, the series documents the return of one of the original reality TV divas, Tiffany “New York” Pollard (“Flavor Of Love,” “I Love New York”) and Claudia Jordan, who is out for redemption since recently ousted from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” The cast also consists of reality show veterans Jennifer Brown (“Basketball Wives”), Karamo Brown (“The Real World: Philadelphia”), Laura Govan (“Basketball Wives: LA”), Raymond “Benzino” Scott (“Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta”). All are attempting to generate their next 15 minutes of fame, on “The Next 15,” a new series which aims to “disrupt” the reality TV genre as we know it. The series showcases the normally unseen “fourth wall” between the producers and the talent, revealing what happens not only on camera but also behind it, as the action unfolds.