Is this really so far fetched?
It combines the fishing channel and the poker channel 
I don’t know why they actually pay people to be security guards, when if surveilance cameras were fed onto broadcast TV, people would sit at home watching cosmetics counters, traffic intersections, after-hours bank vaults, dressing rooms (smal sign "entrance implies consent’), with an 800-number, no, make that a 900-number to call if they spot anything amiss.
How about a show where they pick a name out of the phone book. This person is made an instant celebrity. Legally, they sought celebrity by putting their name in a public forum where any TV producer is able to see it. Then that person’s life is turned, through bold, hard-hitting investigative journalism, viscerally inside out. What’s in their garbage, what old boyfriends/girlfriends remember, from porn on the computer to corn in the stool; it’s all revealed.
Tired of people eating bugs on Fear Factor? How about bugs eating people? Sign your living will today: your family can really use the money from the network (sorry, no residuals). You just know the ratings would really spike when the corpse is of a pretty blonde girl.
TV of people watching TV! Now there’s reality! Watch them get blotto playing those TV drinking games: down a shot every time they hear the word “carmelized” (“The Food Channel”); see that clip of the Vietcong guy in the checkered shirt get shot in the head (The History Channel); every time they say “Clinton” (Fox News).
And, once in a while something high-brow, like “The Hellen Keller Story,” as seen & heard from Hellen’s perspective. Two of TV’s finest hours.
But isn’t the purpose of televised Poker to make televised fishing seem exciting?
As, 'tis Max Headroom here, and I quote from the bard, Shakespeare, a writer: “The quality of TV is not strained, it dropeth as the gentle ratings dropeth to a very tiny percentage share and, lo, 'tis gone.” Of course, Shakespeare would have loved your rating system. Twelfth Night would have been lucky to have lasted one!
Stranger
This one is definitely doable.
It shares enough with Punked and Candid Camera before it to get a sponsor.
If you front me the money to rent a camera and mic, and lend me your phone book, we can start production. The dirt will come all by itself. We put a trailer on the first show “Got dirt on this person? Call 1-800-VICTIM”
slight Hi-jack,
I just wish all the programs I Liked… were still around.
Also, if Media companies could share with each other.
I’d like to the Monty Python show “Blackmail” brought to life.