Hunted is a TV show where ordinary people try to evade capture by a team of expert hunters who have access to replicated powers of the state including CCTV and ANPR.

Often the show comes in for unwarranted criticism for being fake. Here’s my understanding, based on a little Googling.

Table of Contents

Rules

Rule 0: It’s a TV game show.

If by some good luck the Hunters are able to capture all eight teams in the first episode, the producers are not going to play static for the next five episodes. Anything that spoils the show will be fixed, no matter how “unrealistic” that ultimately is.

Having said that, various rules are applied to both Hunters and Hunted to make the game as fair as possible. These rules don’t seem to be documented officially, but they’ve been acknowledged by various people involved – Hunters, Hunted and production staff. The list below is based on information from UK, US and Australian shows on the assumption that they all follow similar rules.

Rules for the Hunted

Most of the rules for the Hunted aren’t intended to be realistic, but just give the Hunters a chance to catch them. (Otherwise, people could just camp in the middle of nowhere for a month.)

Hunted teams:

Must allow phones, emails and social accounts to be monitored, houses to be searched, and family members to be questioned.
Must move every 48 hours (at least 5 miles).
Cannot return to the same place twice.
Cannot be helped by the same person twice.
Must meet up with at least one family member at some point while they’re on-the-run.
Must use an ATM twice during the competition. (Using an ATM immediately gives their location to the Hunters.)
Cannot take out more than a small maximum amount from an ATM at one time ($100 for the US show), and cannot visit an ATM more than once a day. (Seems there’s also a total upper limit e.g. $500 in the US.)
Cannot be given money by anyone else.
Must allow Hunters to “interrogate” any friends that help them e.g. come inside their house. If you agree to help the Hunted, you agree to help the Hunters to some extent.
Must follow any other rules the producers decide. (The example given was that when some friends gave a team 15 burner phones, the producers added a rule limiting gifts to $30.)

Rules for the Hunters

The basic premise is that the Hunters have access to the same facilities as the State. In reality they don’t, so this all has to be “faked”.

The production teams for the Hunters and the Hunted have no contact.
The production teams for the Hunted collect information (“CCTV” footage, GPS data, locations, phone conversations etc.) that could potentially be accessed, and pass this on to a “adjudicator”.
The adjudicator (who is e.g. a former Head of Covert Operations for the Met) provides information to the Hunters only when they request it.
The adjudicator only provides information when they deem it realistic. For example, if the adjudicator decides a request would take 20 minutes in the real world, the Hunters only get the information after 20 minutes; if it would take 24 hours, they get it after 24 hours. Another example: in the UK the production team used more than 800 FOI requests to get locations of state-owned cameras across the UK that are fed into the police central database (Gold Command), and used that to validate the Hunters’ CCTV requests.

Other Rules

There are “stop down” periods where everyone on both sides can rest/sleep/eat etc. During these times neither side is allowed to talk about the game.

Other Logistics

The Hunted teams travel with a crew: two camera guys, a sound guy, a general assistant and a producer.
The crew have to deal with issues like getting permission to shoot in locations.

Other Observations

The footage is often (usually) interleaved in post-production to make it look like the Hunters “almost” caught up with the Hunted, even when (I’m guessing) the Hunted often escaped hours earlier.
Footage is hugely condensed, with up to 5 days of chasing 8 Hunted teams squashed into a single hour. This sometimes makes the Hunters appear very “lucky” e.g. they visit a dozen acquaintances, find one lead, and only that one visit makes it into the show.

Unrealistic Details

Despite all this, some details still appear pretty implausible to me:

In one case the Hunters decided that a friend viewing the Hunted’s social media indicated a connection, despite the post presumably being viewed by many other friends.
There are never any delays, inefficiencies or admin e.g. forms to fill for CCTV requests. It’s very much an ideal world for the Hunters.
All modern cars are assumed to have telematics that allow fine-grained GPS tracking. I suspect this isn’t as universal or reliable as portrayed.

Sources

Various, but particularly:

https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2017/02/cbs-hunted-rules/
https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv//2017/02/hunted-behind-the-scenes/

Tactics for the Hunted

There are plenty of discussions about high-level tactics, so this list only covers my basic observations (mostly based on watching the most recent shows).

If Hunters get access to something, assume it’s now tracked.
If Hunters have visited a location, assume they now have real-time camera monitoring.
If Hunters might know a contact, assume they can listen to any phone calls and see any financial transactions. For example, if your friend books you a hotel room, get them to withdraw cash to pay for it rather than putting it on their card.
If a contact is helping you, ask them to turn off their phone so it can’t be tracked e.g. cell tower, Find My Phone. (Just turning off GPS might not be enough.)
Vehicle drop-offs: make sure you only stop for a few seconds e.g. at a traffic light, to avoid telematics giving away the drop-off location.

Hunted (TV Show)