Are these guys to blame for hastening the decline of Western civilization as we know it?
Or are they just two pals from Denver who struck gold in reality TV?
Douglas Ross and Gregory B. Stewart are the masterminds — or evil geniuses — behind the “Real Housewives” franchise, a reality-TV chronicle of privileged women’s lives and petty miseries that has spawned spinoffs and international iterations.
the version that launched it all, started its 10th season this week on Bravo, still regularly delivering 1 million viewers in the key 18-49-year-old demographic, nearly 2 million total viewers a week. The creative team is going strong, still pitching new shows on every possible platform, looking to the Internet for future launches.
, the Burbank production company Ross and Stewart founded 28 years ago, has achieved tremendous success along with critical disdain as producers of the materialistic train wrecks “Real Housewives of Orange County,” “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Vanderpump Rules” on Bravo and “Botched” (the plastic-surgery mess) on E! among others.
On network TV, the titillating “Fear Factor” on NBC and voyeuristic “Big Brother” on CBS were among their brainchildren. Other unscripted claims to fame include “Private Lives of Nashville Wives” on TNT, “Yo Momma” on MTV, “Beverly Hills Nannies” for ABC Family and “Secrets of a Trophy Wife” on TLC.
“We’ve had a good run,” said Ross.
The company currently employs 16 full-time staff and some 200 freelancers; some have been with the company for years, rising from intern to producer.
Both Ross, the CEO of Evolution, and Stewart, the CFO, were born in Denver. They met in 1973, going into eighth grade at (now-defunct) Gove Junior High School, in second-period social studies. The future business partners shared a locker.
“The desegregation order is how we met,” Stewart said, referring to and resulting busing.
They remain connected to their Colorado roots. Evolution’s 1998 teen reality hit for the Disney Channel about summer camp, was inspired by Geneva Glen Camp in Indian Hills.
“That put the Disney Channel on the map and made us a real company at the same time,” Ross said.
The pair claim that series also set the foundation for how they deal with people. “We learned how to tell entertaining stories without destroying people’s lives,” Ross said.
Most producers see reality-TV casts as “commodities,” he said. He sounds like an actor describing why it’s preferable to play a villain when he speaks of the despicable characters on Evolution’s reality hours: “Even though some people on our shows are not likable — maybe even hateable — we can’t do a good job unless we love them. We see them as whole, embrace them as multifaceted people.”
The premise of these shows is that viewers like to watch people make mistakes, then rebuild. “We do try to have arcs with our characters, just like on a scripted show.” The audience wants to see growth, the pair believes, or the bad behavior becomes predictable.
The “Real Housewives” franchise is entirely unscripted, they say, just selectively cast to pit aggressive, type-A personalities against one another.
Bravo often sends notes with dialogue suggestions, but the producers decline. “We will ask the cast to move events into our production schedule,” like dinner parties and vacations, and let the conflict happen. “The show is largely built during post-production,” like most reality TV, through many months of clever editing.
“We can find a story hidden in reaction shots.”
On the three crews in the field, field loggers note developing storylines, the sound department flags interesting tidbits. Back at the office, a 20-person story department watches all interviews, crafts episodes on a board, laying out each act with index cards.
“We’re still low-tech.”
The company employs a team of lawyers to “do battle with network attorneys and cast attorneys.”
Evolution’s most difficult show is now in its second revolting season, a production challenge due to the 78 surgeries with different “heal times,” requiring different approaches to the “big reveal.” (While Ross and Stewart make a case for the virtues of remedying cosmetic surgery gone wrong, they acknowledge their series isn’t exactly virtuous. “There’s plenty of the freak factor in it,” Ross said.)
Currently, they are producing “The Assistants” with for Oxygen, about the lives of underlings to Atlanta entertainment moguls. “The Upstairs/Downstairs idea always works,” Ross said.
Next, they aim to get into business with a streaming distribution outlet. “People want their content where they want it, they want to be able to watch on the go. We will be there, delivering original content for a Web provider.”
These sons of Denver have found reality-TV riches beyond their imagining, a point of pride for their families. Ross’ parents met at Gove; Stewart’s parents met at South High School. Ross said his parents are proud of the duo “for growing Evolution from its roots in the one-car garage in north Hollywood to the reality-production powerhouse it is today.”
But what about the content? Can his folks bear to watch the insufferable personalities and loutish behavior the shows depict?
“Mike and Patti Ross may not have originally tuned in to watch ‘RHOC’ had we not been the producers,” Ross said, “but they are now completely hooked.”
Nor is Ross bothered by the shame heaped on reality TV.
“All of us have the same reaction to negative comments about the reality genre and ‘RHOC,’ ” Ross said. “Some people love it, and some don’t. But it always amuses us that for those who claim they don’t watch the show and hate reality TV, they are the ones who seem to know more of the details of all the soap-opera stories.
“So clearly, they’re watching it.”
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ostrowdp
