Real-life Drama. In the 1990s the American appetite for "real" TV grew. In addition to the many "shockumentaries" that showed footage of everything from police chases to animal attacks, Americans began to tune in to courtroom television. Two subgenres experienced increasing popularity throughout the decade—televised coverage of criminal trials and shows starring theatrical judges who generally heard civil cases brought by friends, relatives, neighbors, and business associates against each other.

Cameras in the Courtroom.

On the whole, the decision whether or not to allow cameras in the courtroom has tended to be left to state supreme courts. In 1965, however, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Estes v. Texas that television coverage of a trial could not be conducted in a circuslike atmosphere, but it did not say that this coverage was inherently unconstitutional. In its Chandler v. Florida (1981) decision, the Court...