Oprah Winfrey’s Go-To Reality TV Producer Carlos King Says a Show’s Success ‘Lives and Dies’ by Its Cast

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and Kingdom Reign Entertainment founder and CEO Carlos King wears it comfortably cocked to the side. The thrown he sits upon is one he built himself with more than a decade’s worth of experience producing reality TV. And after crafting Bravo’s first most-watched “Real Housewives” franchise with “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” Season 6 while also making history as the show’s first Black, male EP, he quickly became known as the “King of Reality TV.”

Now the go-to reality TV producer for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN, he’s behind several of the network’s hit docu-soaps, including the “Love & Marriage” franchise and “Belle Collective.” You can also catch him on his own YouTube podcast “Reality With the King.”

King’s love for media started at a young age, when he’d watch America’s most iconic journalists and TV personalities, including the woman who’d one day bring him over to her queendom.

“I was a little gay, Black boy from Detroit who would watch endless hours of television, from soap operas with my mom to talk shows like ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,'” King told TheWrap, sitting for this week’s Office With a View interview. “I was 12 years old when I stumbled upon a show called ‘Teen Summit’ on BET, hosted by Nanda Lewis, and I saw this gorgeous Black woman – articulate, smart, was able to be not just earnest but caring and entertaining, and I said, ‘I want to do that. I want to do what she’s doing.'”

Read on for King’s full Office With a View interview below.  

Reality TV isn’t for the faint of heart, considering sporadic schedules, dealing with strong personalities. What is it about the genre that attracts you?
I love real people. I am a journalist. I went to college for journalism, I interned at “20/20.” I was the editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper, I was a reporter for local newspapers in Detroit, Michigan. So, I love real people, I love real stories, and that’s my attraction to this genre.

The state of reality is interesting, because you have some people who are joining for the wrong reasons. They want the quick thing, the quick money, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s their inability to give their real stories. When you hide something from the audience, that’s a no, no. I have no interest in working with anybody who’s hiding their real lives.

So I’m concerned about that. I’m concerned about the authenticity. I’m concerned about the intention. The audience is much savvier; they can spot a fake and they can spot a thirsty person, honey, and they’re like, “No, ma’am, you’re thirsty, and we don’t like you.” And it’s funny, because when I’m casting for my shows, I always tell people, “It’s OK to be thirsty, don’t be dehydrated.” It’s OK to want it.

Let’s get into Kingdom Reign Entertainment. At what point did you decide, “Hey, I’ve built my brand. I’ve got the resources, connections, experience. Now it’s time for me to branch out and do my own thing?”
I always tell people: You can be an agent of change or you can be somebody who’s going to complain and not do anything about it, right? So I wanted to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. So here I am as the first Black, male executive producer of the “Housewives” franchise, and I knew how important that was, and I got that opportunity Season 6, which is currently and because television has changed, it will forever remain the high for the season of Bravo, because we were doing live, 4 million people in one day. Nowadays, that’s unheard of.

So I had that opportunity, and I was bringing more Black people up in the ranks. I had production assistant say to me, “I want to be like you.” OK, well, sit here, watch the scene, and then afterwards, tell me your thoughts on it. Those producers now are executive producers, they’re showrunners. So I wanted to give more people of color the opportunity to be in this business, and I knew that I had to take it up an extra notch. 

So that’s when I started my production company, because at the time, there weren’t any Black-owned production companies producing reality television. And I was from the first and still remain being the one who has had success. Thank you, God. So I wanted to be an agent of change. Hire more people of color behind the scenes, but also hire more people of color in front of the camera [to] become stars. So when “Love & Marriage: Huntsville” became the No. 1 show on OWN, and I’m the first black man to have a franchise that has lasted this long, we spawned all three different cities, “Love & Marriage” D.C. and Detroit, and we are able to really showcase Black couples in a way that you haven’t seen on television.

Being a person of color in reality is very hard. There’s not many of us. So when you’re given a chance, it can happen. And I’m happy to have given the opportunity to so many people. 

You’re the first openly gay, Black man to have his own late night show. I would imagine you’ve faced some challenges during your journey to success. 
I’m a double minority – I’m Black and I’m gay. So imagine the life that I have prior to working in television, but it being multiplied. Being in television, being famous, people knowing who I am, and then breaking ground wherever I go. I am, unfortunately, sometimes the only one, the first one. I don’t feel great about that. I don’t brag about it, which is why I always bring people with me. 

When I left [“Real Housewives of Atlanta”] I replaced myself with another Black male. I was leaving, but I got somebody who can replace me who looks like me – that’s how you do it. So when I got the late night talk show – shout out to Tina Perry over at OWN; shout out to Ms. Winfrey and to Drew Tappon. Those were three people who were very instrumental in giving me the opportunity. Because when I hosted the “Love & Marriage” husband reunion, they all were like, “Oh, you also could do this. You’re good at it. And wow, the audience has responded to you.” 

So all of this happened the way it was supposed to. I’ve always wanted my own talk show, so to have that opportunity on a woman’s network who I admired for so many years, Oprah Winfrey, it was great. Did it present challenges? I mean, look, I’m no stranger. The beauty is, my relationship with OWN means the world to me, they are amazing partners. I’m a very blessed young man to have them as partners, and we are cooking up some opportunities to see more of that. 

TheWrap recently reported on reality TV and how Hollywood has progressively begun to pull back on funding reality TV. What are your thoughts on this shift, and are you seeing or experiencing this in your personal practice?
We all are experiencing this, seeing this, going through it. It’s very different; it’s challenging. We are going through a crisis in our business economically and that is affecting budgets. And budgets affect series orders. So when you have a hit show, it doesn’t matter anymore. Is the show too expensive, can we afford for the cast? There are X amount of seasons and they want the big paycheck that they deserve, right? But the industry is going through an economic crisis. There’s consolidations happening, there’s mergers happening. So it is affecting everybody at large. 

So when it comes to the future reality television, to be honest with you, I’m seeing a decline. The facts and the stats are stating that there’s a decline. But I do feel like there has to be a way to still provide content. Content would never die. When you go home from a long day at work, you want to watch something … So I know there’s content people need. I just feel like viewers consume content, and where they get content is going to be the future of reality television. That’s going to be the difference, how they consume it. And I think it’s our job to figure out how we can get in front of it. 

In order for a reality show to be greenlit, what does it need? What are the key components?
I strongly believe a reality show’s success lives and dies by the cast. It does. You have to look at it like sports. An NBA team lives or dies by its players. If you don’t have an amazing starting five, you’re not going to the playoffs. You can have a great coach, you can have a great brand. You ain’t got the right team, you ain’t cookin’. So you have to look at reality TV that way.

When you see shows not succeed — and listen, I’ve had shows not make it to another season — I always regroup and say, “What could we have done differently?” And I always go back to the cast and always say, “Maybe we should have had this type of person instead of that person, or this entire cast should have been somebody else.” I always go to the cast first, like, “What didn’t go right?”

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone who’s wanting to have a career like yours, be a producer and have their own brand?
No. 1: Believe in God, because in order to do something on this level, you got to have a strong faith. There’s so many people who are going to try and knock you down, tell you no, hate on you. The thing is, you’re faced with so much adversity that you need a strong faith base, friend group and family base to drown out the noise. So believe in God first.

And you have to put in the work. We live in a world right now where everybody wants it fast and now, and “I ain’t about to be 25 years old still being an assistant, no, no, no.” And if you don’t, that’s fine. I want everybody to win and succeed in doing it the way they want to. But you should want sustainable success. 

I had every single job in my business before I owned the company. I was a production assistant, producer, segment/field producer, supervisor and executive. Then I did an overall deal at another production company. Let’s call that an internship, honey. Before I started my production company, I wanted to sit back and see how a full service production company operated. I wanted to do it. I was like, “I’ll be here for two years. Let me just see if I want to do this, or do I want to be somebody who has ideas, sells them and goes home.” 

I feel like there’s so much more for me to do. And I’m able to handle a lot because I’ve done it all already, and I’ve seen people make mistakes, but I’ve also seen people soar. You want that. You don’t want to one day be the intern, and next month you’re the CEO. Like, that’s great. But are you ready? So I implore everybody to ask yourself and be real with yourself: “Am I ready for this? Am I really ready for this?” And don’t be afraid to say, “I’m not. Let me do this first and then let me get to that place.”

That’s my advice to this generation – just be patient and do the work. And the thing is, no one can take it away from you. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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