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Court show
A court show (also known as a judge show, legal/courtroom program, courtroom series, or judicial show) is a broadcast programming genre comprising legal dramas and reality legal programming. Court shows present content mainly in the form of legal hearings between plaintiffs (or claimants in the United Kingdom) and defendants, presided over in one of two formats: scripted/improvised with an actor portraying a judge; or, an arbitration-based reality format with the case handled by an adjudicator who was formerly a judge or attorney.
At present, these shows typically portray small claims court cases, produced in a simulation of a small claims courtroom inside of a television studio. As an exception, from 2020–2021, numerous aspects of this genre were largely forsaken due to COVID-19, such as hearings transpiring from simulated courtroom studio sets. More so than other genres, court shows withstood transformations stemming from the pandemic that were drastic and conspicuous, due to their unorthodox process of interchanging defendants for each individual episode.
Court shows first began in radio broadcasting in the 1930s, starting with The Court of Human Relations, and evolved with the introduction of television in the late 1940s, with programs such as Court of Current Issues, Your Witness, Famous Jury Trials, and more.
The most widely-used techniques in the court show genre are dramatizations, featuring scripted or loosely script-directed hearings, and arbitration-based reality shows. The former remained the technique of choice for roughly six decades. By the late 1990s, however, arbitration-based reality shows became the technique of choice, as they remain today. Dramatizations were either fictional cases - often inspired from factual details in actual cases- or reenactments of actual trials. The role of the judge was often taken by a retired real-life judge, a law school professor or an actor.
Arbitration-based reality shows, on the other hand, typically involve litigants who agree to have their disputes aired on national television and adjudicated by a television show "judge". However, the forum is merely a simulated courtroom constructed within a television studio and not a legitimate court of law. Therefore, said judges are technically arbitrators, and the process depicted is a form of binding arbitration. Most arbitrators presiding in modern court programs have had at least some legal experience, often a conditional requirement to participate in these televised programs.
Court show programs are a staple of daytime television, often airing once or twice every weekday. With minimal production costs (under $200,000 a week, as opposed to entertainment magazines' hefty $1,000,000) and an evergreen, episodic format, court shows are easily and frequently rerun. Like talk shows, the procedure of court shows varies based upon the titular host. In most cases, they are first-run syndication programs. In 2001, the genre began to outperform soap operas in daytime television ratings. While all syndicated shows are steadily losing audiences, court shows have the slowest rate of viewer attrition. Thus, by the late 2000s, the number of court shows in syndication had, for the first time, matched the number of talk shows. As reported in late 2012, court programming is the second highest-rated genre on daytime television. The genre's most formidable competitors in syndication have been the sitcom and game show.
The beginnings of the court show genre are embedded in radio broadcasting, dating back to the mid-1930s. While television has been available since the 1920s, it would not become the main media venue or even popular until the 1950s. The era from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s is commonly called radio's Golden Age. In the mid-1930s, the Hauptmann trial sparked an upsurge of fascination with dramatized court shows wherein trials and hearings were acted out. As radio fans were denied the vicarious thrill of eavesdropping on the actual courtroom trials, many turned to this venue of entertainment. In these programs, testimonies were limited to the most captivating, explosive portions of the original case. Though there was risk of libel and slander suits in producing court case recreations, this threat was commonly sidestepped by taking from trials of the distant past, with the original participants dead. Prior to 1936, there were only 2 major radio court shows: The Court of Human Relations and Goodwill Court.
As television began to exceed radio's popularity, radio broadcast court programming had waned. By 1948, court programming relocated and appeared on television for the first time, officially birthing the television court show genre. In the genre's first stages, television court shows largely followed the same "dramatized" format as radio court shows, though with the new element of physical and visual entertainment. The vast majority of these court shows were depicted in black-and-white.
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Court show
A court show (also known as a judge show, legal/courtroom program, courtroom series, or judicial show) is a broadcast programming genre comprising legal dramas and reality legal programming. Court shows present content mainly in the form of legal hearings between plaintiffs (or claimants in the United Kingdom) and defendants, presided over in one of two formats: scripted/improvised with an actor portraying a judge; or, an arbitration-based reality format with the case handled by an adjudicator who was formerly a judge or attorney.
At present, these shows typically portray small claims court cases, produced in a simulation of a small claims courtroom inside of a television studio. As an exception, from 2020–2021, numerous aspects of this genre were largely forsaken due to COVID-19, such as hearings transpiring from simulated courtroom studio sets. More so than other genres, court shows withstood transformations stemming from the pandemic that were drastic and conspicuous, due to their unorthodox process of interchanging defendants for each individual episode.
Court shows first began in radio broadcasting in the 1930s, starting with The Court of Human Relations, and evolved with the introduction of television in the late 1940s, with programs such as Court of Current Issues, Your Witness, Famous Jury Trials, and more.
The most widely-used techniques in the court show genre are dramatizations, featuring scripted or loosely script-directed hearings, and arbitration-based reality shows. The former remained the technique of choice for roughly six decades. By the late 1990s, however, arbitration-based reality shows became the technique of choice, as they remain today. Dramatizations were either fictional cases - often inspired from factual details in actual cases- or reenactments of actual trials. The role of the judge was often taken by a retired real-life judge, a law school professor or an actor.
Arbitration-based reality shows, on the other hand, typically involve litigants who agree to have their disputes aired on national television and adjudicated by a television show "judge". However, the forum is merely a simulated courtroom constructed within a television studio and not a legitimate court of law. Therefore, said judges are technically arbitrators, and the process depicted is a form of binding arbitration. Most arbitrators presiding in modern court programs have had at least some legal experience, often a conditional requirement to participate in these televised programs.
Court show programs are a staple of daytime television, often airing once or twice every weekday. With minimal production costs (under $200,000 a week, as opposed to entertainment magazines' hefty $1,000,000) and an evergreen, episodic format, court shows are easily and frequently rerun. Like talk shows, the procedure of court shows varies based upon the titular host. In most cases, they are first-run syndication programs. In 2001, the genre began to outperform soap operas in daytime television ratings. While all syndicated shows are steadily losing audiences, court shows have the slowest rate of viewer attrition. Thus, by the late 2000s, the number of court shows in syndication had, for the first time, matched the number of talk shows. As reported in late 2012, court programming is the second highest-rated genre on daytime television. The genre's most formidable competitors in syndication have been the sitcom and game show.
The beginnings of the court show genre are embedded in radio broadcasting, dating back to the mid-1930s. While television has been available since the 1920s, it would not become the main media venue or even popular until the 1950s. The era from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s is commonly called radio's Golden Age. In the mid-1930s, the Hauptmann trial sparked an upsurge of fascination with dramatized court shows wherein trials and hearings were acted out. As radio fans were denied the vicarious thrill of eavesdropping on the actual courtroom trials, many turned to this venue of entertainment. In these programs, testimonies were limited to the most captivating, explosive portions of the original case. Though there was risk of libel and slander suits in producing court case recreations, this threat was commonly sidestepped by taking from trials of the distant past, with the original participants dead. Prior to 1936, there were only 2 major radio court shows: The Court of Human Relations and Goodwill Court.
As television began to exceed radio's popularity, radio broadcast court programming had waned. By 1948, court programming relocated and appeared on television for the first time, officially birthing the television court show genre. In the genre's first stages, television court shows largely followed the same "dramatized" format as radio court shows, though with the new element of physical and visual entertainment. The vast majority of these court shows were depicted in black-and-white.