>>Charles, thank you for this reply. Finally a serious one. Although I liked reading all, I comment on only one paragraph, to keep it focussed.
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>>>You don't think they could get that kind of Dutch audience becuase no one who knows how has bothered to try. But I assure you, if the Dutch market were large enough that anyone cared to do it, it would not be hard to find enough people to fill a studio audience or a contestant list for pretty much anything. I bet it wasn't hard to find grunge or punk or hiphop clubs in Amsterdam over the years.
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>>I think that Dutch culture won't tolerate it. We'd feel and show aversion about such manipulation. There have been cases where 'we' discovered only afterwards that outcomes were setups, were manipulated. People felt betrayed and showed their disdain, which was esp. targeted at the hosts and producers.
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>>>And I apologize for hip hop.
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>>Apologies accepted. :)
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>American culture will 'tolerate' pretty much anything that makes a profit - but the definition of "tolerate" includes ignoring it or making fun of it or thinking the people who like it are idiots.
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>But understand that Americans are extremely media savvy. Everyone knows about the applause signs, the audience warmups etc. We invented this stuff. Entertainment is about the voluntary suspension of disbelief. I probably hate this trash even more than you do but I don't feel very threatened by it. Nobody is pretending this stuff is real or that it represents anything other than telivised silliness with a profit motive. There really is no deception involved.
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>On shows that actually are supposed to be competitions there is a great deal of trouble taken to keep them honest after the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. I was a contestant on Jeopardy - probably the most famous and longest running quiz show in TV history - and contestants were never allowed to even talk to people who worked on the part of the show that involved the questions.

Were you on a Jeopardy episode that aired? How did it go? That was a very popular show so I'm sure it was hard to even make it that far.