<P> Television formats portraying ordinary people in unscripted situations are almost as old as the television medium itself . Producer - host Allen Funt's Candid Camera, in which unsuspecting people were confronted with funny, unusual situations and filmed with hidden cameras, first aired in 1948, and is often seen as a prototype of reality television programming . </P> <P> Precedents for television that portrayed people in unscripted situations began in the late 1940s . Queen for a Day (1945--1964) was an early example of reality - based television . The 1946 television game show Cash and Carry sometimes featured contestants performing stunts . Debuting in 1948, Allen Funt's hidden camera show Candid Camera (based on his previous 1947 radio show, Candid Microphone) broadcast unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks . In 1948, talent search shows Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts featured amateur competitors and audience voting . In the 1950s, game shows Beat the Clock and Truth or Consequences involved contestants in wacky competitions, stunts, and practical jokes . Confession was a crime / police show which aired from June 1958 to January 1959, with interviewer Jack Wyatt questioning criminals from assorted backgrounds . The radio series Nightwatch (1951--1955) tape - recorded the daily activities of Culver City, California police officers . The series You Asked for It (1950--1959) incorporated audience involvement by basing episodes around requests sent in by postcard from viewers . </P> <P> First broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television documentary Seven Up!, broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary 7 - year - olds from a broad cross-section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life . Every seven years, a film documented the life of the same individuals during the intervening period, titled the Up Series, episodes include "7 Plus Seven", "21 Up", etc.; it is still ongoing . The program was structured as a series of interviews with no element of plot . However, it did have the then - new effect of turning ordinary people into celebrities . The first reality show in the modern sense may have been the series The American Sportsman, which ran from 1965 to 1986 on ABC in the United States . A typical episode featured one or more celebrities, and sometimes their family members, being accompanied by a camera crew on an outdoor adventure, such as hunting, fishing, hiking, scuba diving, rock climbing, wildlife photography, horseback riding, race car driving, and the like, with most of the resulting action and dialogue being unscripted, except for the narration . </P> <P> In the 1966 Direct Cinema film Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol filmed various acquaintances with no direction given; the Radio Times Guide to Film 2007 stated that the film was "to blame for reality television". </P>

When was the first reality tv show aired