I happened to find this episode of the 1983-84 syndicated talk show "Woman To Woman" which gave a very good discussion on why some people actually enjoy game shows in the first place, and the impact the game show genre had at that time (remember, this was from Apr. 1984, so some opinions may be different now than they were back then).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyHIOu7G2r8