Love it, hate it, or feel indifferent about it, reality television is a staple of American television. It has been since The Real World and Road Rules premiered on MTV back in the 1990s, which started a chain reaction in the broadcast world. Eventually, the network and cable landscapes would be full of shows like Survivor, American Idol, Trading Spaces, and Big Brother. Since then, a season hasn't gone by without a show that emulated those shows, or any of the hundreds of other reality shows that were spurred by these originators.

So, what happened? How could we television viewers have lived with scripted fare for decades without a whiff of "reality" except for what was shown on the network news each night? Well, technically we didn't. Reality programming was there, except it wasn't called "reality programming" at the time. In addition, it was placed amidst a slew of scripted programming so it was considered a rarity. Nevertheless, these show were there and they were the impetus for some of the reality shows that we see today.

So where did reality programming begin? Actually, it didn't begin on television at all, but on the radio.

%Gallery-22519%