Fox 21 Ramps Up Reality Slate With Ryan Murphy and Ashton Kutcher Projects (Exclusive)

7:00 AM PDT 3/30/2011 by Lacey Rose

Bert Salke, president of the 20th Television offshoot since September, embraces unscripted projects like "Geek Meets Girl," "Model Apartment."

Bert Salke has a confession to make. He's a reality television junkie.

"For someone who has made his living in one-hour television for the last however many years, I hate to admit it –and I'll be vilified- but I just love it," says the Fox 21 president. "I think it's really compelling, the good and the bad."

So it's only appropriate that Salke, who has been running the lower-cost offshoot of TV powerhouse 20th Television since September, is ramping up its unscripted slate. Though one of Fox 21's earliest successes was the CW reality series Beauty and the Geek, the studio hadn't returned to the genre in any significant way since. (More recent offerings include FX's hit Sons of Anarchy and A&E's Breakout Kings, both scripted.) Its parent studio, along with many of its rivals, had similarly ignored the unscripted genre, leaving what Salke sees as an opening.

Fox 21's reality slate: