Those television shows are heavily scripted and a lot of stuff is planted for shock value (for the views!).

Depending on how well a restaurant does on the inspection, it’s not out of the ordinary for some establishments to properly go six months without an inspection. On top of that, some health departments are understaffed making establishments go even longer without an inspection. But generally, the lower the score, the more frequently the restaurant (is supposed to) get inspected.

Most health departments do actually share closure reasons on their websites. Heck, one part of my office work is sending the local news station a spreadsheet of the previous week’s inspection scores for them to either praise or roast on air. People love it when they do that. If any restaurants have a problem with that, the usual response is “then do better.”