In Britain, 98 per cent of households have at 1 one television set and an average of 25 hours a week is spent in front of it. 30 per cent of homes now have video machines, and the number is rising rapidly. This average of 25 hours a week is a staggering amount of time taken 2 of people’s lives. What do they watch? Mostly, it appears, game shows and soap opera, usually 3 American origin. Game and quiz shows – there is a difference between 4, games you stand up, quizzes you sit down – are immensely popular. They began in the United States in 1955 with The 64 Thousand Dollar Question, which enabled contestants to win big money by answering complex questions. It became an overnight sensation, but three years later the bubble burst. Several contestants – the 5 that lost – charged that popular quiz shows were rigged. The scandal shook the TV industry and forced the networks to kill off the shows. They were resurrected in 1961. They are still booming. There are 21 game shows flourishing 6 American networks, the biggest and latest being Chance of a Lifetime in which contestants can win a million dollars. It is these big-money shows that draw the big audiences, and thus the advertising sponsors. For the networks, it’s cheap. A programming manager for CBS says, “It costs around $100,000 to put 7 a show, and efficient producers can shoot five programmes, or a week’s worth of programmes, in one day. Afternoon soaps cost twice or three times as much to produce and you can 8 tape one half-hour segment a day. So it boils down to economics.”