These shows still exist but are less extreme: take the savvy working-class people on Channel 5âs Bargain Brits on Benefits or the benevolent nurses on Channel 4âs long-running show One Born Every Minute. But since these tempered versions of reality TV donât satiate our need for extreme, they have left a space for more shows about the wealthy. âPunching up rather than down is perhaps less problematic,â says Dr Ruth Deller, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and the author of Reality Television: The TV Phenomenon That Changed the World, âespecially if [the rich] are in on the joke.â