Thanks Chiri. I think these reality TV shows are fascinating. Here in England we have "Big Brother" every year and lots of the contestants from that have managed to carve careers for themselves in TV. You are right about the prize money being pathetic, but (and I don't know what sort of background these contestants came from) if you've never had that kind of money before, it could seem like a small fortune.
That said, the prize money on Big Brother is something like ?100,000, which to me is a fortune. But I don't think I'd want to be exposed to nationwide TV for 24 hours a day for several weeks to be in with a chance of winning it. I'll stick to buying a lottery ticket every week I think!