It does seem like it, but I think Survivor ushered the era of reality television as we know it now.

Like most trends that become popular globally (texting, EDM, etc.), the US is always a several years behind before a thing catches on and develops cult status following like a religion:
- America's Funniest Home Videos was based on a Japanese variety show that featured funny home videos.
- Iron Chef America was created after Iron Chef ended in Japan and popular reruns of it's show on the Food Network.
- Ninja Warrior (US version) was created after reruns of Sasuke (Ninja Warrior in Japan) became popular on G4TV.

We've had Cops and MTV's the Real World, which were popular on small circles in the country. There were other unscripted shows that didn't really stand out. Reality TV, as it is known today, have been popular in other countries before The Truman Show.

It wasn't until Survivor became a smash hit that networks started creating their own versions of unscripted shows. (Fun fact: Survivor was based on a Swedish show called Expedition Robinson)

20+ years later and we still have Survivor, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, American Idol, The Voice, Amazing Race, etc.

I dunno, Chris-Chan is probably the closest to Truman in the modern age, and that had a very different ending.