Reality collision course ahead

Talk about a wipeout: June 24 is shaping up to be a perfect storm of summer reality programming.

Once upon a time, the date was merely notable for staging a face off between the second week of NBC's top-rated summer series "America's Got Talent" and the premiere of ABC's new reality show "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" -- whose lead-in is the premiere of obstacle course comedy "Wipeout."

Then, last week, Fox decided it wasn't going to chance either network stealing Tuesday night, which it has dominated this summer with "Moment of Truth" and "Hell's Kitchen."

Fox yanked the lesser-performing of its duo, "Truth," from 8 p.m. and scheduled a "Hell's Kitchen" repeat, figuring the strongest lead-in is sometimes the same show.   

Now NBC is sending in backup: The network has just announced it will move up the premiere of "Celebrity Family Feud" to June 24 at 8 p.m. This will help ensure there are plenty of viewers to feed into "Talent." This strategy makes sense especially because Fox moving "Truth" means there is no longer a competing game show in the time period.

To recap: That's the premiere of NBC's "Feud" vs. the premiere of ABC's "Wipe Out" vs. "Kitchen" repeat at 8 p.m. Then the second week of NBC's top-rated "Got Talent" vs. the premiere of ABC's "Japanese Game Show" vs. an original of Fox's "Kitchen" at 9 p.m.

CBS is airing repeats, with Nina Tassler likely sitting on a beach somewhere and perfectly content to stay out of this demolition derby.

Some thoughts:

With “Hell’s Kitchen” winding down to its final contestants, the show is expected to mostly keep its momentum.

Given the way NBC has trended this summer, one would expect the “Got Talent” premiere to be down this year, just hopefully not too much. With CBS’ “Password” and the primetime “Price Is Right” performing modestly, and celeb-reality doing weak numbers, expectations are modest for “Celebrity Family Feud.”

ABC's “Japanese Game Show” (produced by Arthur Smith, who also producers “Hell’s,” so he’s facing off against himself) will have a tough time overcoming “Kitchen” and “Got Talent.”

But then there’s “Wipeout.”

Nobody is sure what to make of this show. If there’s one new series that could surprise people this summer, it’s this one. Clearly NBC and Fox are taking it seriously. ABC is running plenty of ads during the NBA Finals, so audience awareness should be high. But will viewers tune in to watch people falling off big bouncy balls?