This year looks to be a mix of returning favourites and variations on familiar themes with a few new concepts to entice viewers. Nine's website, interestingly, has a Reality category and a separate Guilty Pleasures section where reality also looms large. Dating Naked is self explanatory but other dating shows take looks out of the equation. Sexy Beasts has people meet while in heavy prosthetic makeup, and in Love is Blind, couples date without seeing each other. And Married At First Sight is entering its ninth season.

Big Brother and Survivor are back - the former in one of the "celebrity" variants, adding familiar faces to the format, and the latter is subtitled Blood V Water, with family members on opposing teams.

When it comes to cooking shows, instead of producing gourmet cuisine as in the returning MasterChef Australia, Snackmasters has people compete to replicate Twisties, Drumsticks and other treats.

Then there's a more unusual show like Parental Guidance, where 10 sets of parents have their their child-rearing skills tested against each other.

From cooking to dating, reality TV has a broad scope. But what exactly is it? How real is it? And why is it so popular, both with participants and audiences?

University of Canberra art and design faculty executive dean Jason Bainbridge, an avid reality fan, has thought about the genre and its popularity. A former Queenslander, he remembers the sensation Big Brother caused when it premiered in Australia.

The essential idea of reality TV, Bainbridge says, is to put ordinary people, not actors, in unscripted situations and see what happens.

"Reality TV is such a broad genre," he says.

The idea goes back a long way and involves a lot of formats. The secretly filmed pranks on Candid Camera began in the 1940s and there have been cooking, lifestyle, game, dating and talent shows as well as documentary series like Sylvania Waters that fit the criteria.

But reality TV in its current form took off in the 1990s and is still going strong. Shows like Big Brother and Survivor produced striking pop culture moments (like Big Brother evictee Merlin Luck's 2004 silent pro-refugee protest), catchphrases ("The tribe has spoken") and (often minor and fleeting) celebrity.

Bainbridge says reality shows can be produced even if there's a writers' strike happening. And, he says, "It's a global format ... that's become very international and democratising."

Many of the properties originate outside the US and the rights to the franchises can be sold around the world. Big Brother originated in the Netherlands and the Australian format of My Kitchen Rules was sold to the US.

While part of reality TV's appeal is its unscripted, unfiltered nature - "real people, real time" as Bainbridge says - it's far from real.

"We know it's highly produced and highly edited and highly constructed," he says.

There are manufactured situations and challenges and people know they're being filmed. It's at best verisimilitude rather than verite.

But, Bainbridge says, "The special appeal for people who do like reality TV is that accidents can happen."

Despite all the selectivity and contrivance there are compelling "storylines" and "characters" and, in particular, raw moments that keep people watching. With censorship more relaxed in recent decades than before, anything can happen, like Big Brother's 2006 late-night "turkey slap" tht led to criticism by then prime minister John Howard.

Another attraction of reality TV, Bainbridge says, is "it can often make people feel better about their own lives. It's the inverse of what we see happening on social media."

While seeing someone's success on Instagram causes envy, watching people on reality TV shows make fools of themselves is more about schadenfreude. It's "comfort television" for many, Bainbridge says, whether they're hate-watching it or genuinely invested: they can be safely judgmental.

But there's also a sense of excitement, perhaps a vicarious thrill, in seeing people behave badly.

"A show like Big Brother is really interesting - I'm a fan of Big Brother, it provides an insight into Australian culture."

Isn't that a terrifying thought?

"You could frame it that way."

Now that people are more used to reality TV, Bainbridge says participants have become more self-aware: shows like Survivor evolve over time as people try to play the game using lessons gleaned from earlier seasons.

Although he draws the line at anything that causes contestants genuine harm, Bainbridge says the more out there reality TV gets, the more fun it is.

"It can be negative but it can also be quite a positive thing - reality TV at its best can be educative. You can learn how to behave in social situations, learn survival skills in Survivor, and see parts of the world in The Amazing Race."

Some contestants try to parlay their exposure into a career - Bainbridge thinks reality TV celebrity has about a five-year life cycle. To succeed long-term, having a genuine skill or talent is needed, but contestants can get a head start, whether they win or not. MasterChef Australia runner-up Poh Ling Yeow and Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian are two who have done well.

As a big fan of the genre, would Bainbridge go on a reality TV show himself?

"No! I have no interest in the experience.".

Like millions of others, he is quite content to watch.