Violent Reality

Last night I watched Balls of Steel on Channel 4. Ok, I'll admit that there were at least three things I could have been doing instead, the most sensible of which would have been to go to bed. But instead I watched, horrified, as people performed all sorts of crazy stunts, including jumping on the back of strangers, and timing to see how long they could stay on, just like it was a rodeo.
The worst, though, and the reason I'm bothering you with this at all, is that there was a segment in which two men purposely injured themselves with tools, just to see how much pain each tool caused. I've been wondering for a while how long it was going to take before someone combined our society's thirst for "reality" with the alluring power of violence. Maybe this isn't the first instance of a show like this, but it's the first I've seen. The two "stunts" I saw were just insane. First, they tried to see how much pain it caused when one guy used a belt sander on the other's naked back-side. He barely touched his butt when he screamed with pain...it started bleeding almost immediately. But then, the guy came back for more, and had him sand his butt a second time!! He rated it a 9 out of 10 in terms of pain. Then, the same guy put his hand on a block of wood, and his "friend" hammered a nail into the space of skin between his thumb and forefinger. Then they showed a close-up as he pulled the nail out of the wood and through his hand - again, blood came out immediately. He rated this 10 out of 10.
Just a little picture of the world we live in. I don't think this is indicative of the state of British culture as a whole (Channel 4's website has a forum, and from what I've seen, almost all comments on the show are negative). But there are some people who want to see this. Any thoughts on how the good news of Jesus speaks into this setting?