Culture of authenticity?

This is what happens when you start cruising the TV channels and something makes you go "hmm..."

Anyway, as of the new year, MeTV has started airing "Adam-12" which I remember watching as a kid because the reruns were on the Louisville stations in the afternoons (along with several other shows). I've been watching the half-hour episodes and looked up the show. It premiered the day after Five-O on September 21, 1968, which struck me as funny/ironic. In case you don't know, it follows a pair of LAPD patrol officers one a veteran and the other a rookie. The calls they go on run the gamut of minor to very serious and are based on real cases in LA. This is partly because of Jack Webb being the executive producer and he was a stickler for making things as real as possible. "Adam-12" was created by R.A. Cinader, the same man who created "Emergency!" (premiering in 1972) and it had the same culture of authenticity.

Why is this related to Five-O? With the two shows debuting a day apart, could they have pushed one another into that realm of reality they tried to project? Are they completely unrelated? I find this latter possibility not as viable as the former because television is extremely competitive and while they probably didn't meet head-to-head on their schedules, I can see them making sure they kept it real because this was one of the selling points for both shows. The other option was the year they premiered: 1968. Besides the world falling apart around everybody, the television landscape of the time was to keep things real. Yes, it's entertainment but the more you can relate to your audience, the better and as a result the higher the ratings, which is the name of the game after all.

Any thoughts?