It was the 1988 Writers Guild strike that set off the "reality show" craze. It was the longest Hollywood strike ever and forced the TV studios to fill time with whatever they could get their hands on that didn't require writers. That's when the entertainment/gossip shows like Entertainment Tonight launched along with the flashy news shows like Inside Edition. When the strike ended, the studios looked at what it cost to do an episode of a drama or "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," and made the fiscal decision to do a whole lot more of the latter.