Take Teen Mom for instance. I believe it airs on MTV, which caters to a 15-25 demographic, from what I can ascertain. Surely there are girls who wonder, 'what would it be like to be pregnant while in high school', and probably mother's who wonder, 'what would it be like to be the mother of a pregnant teenager.' So when they watch the show, they can project themselves into the 'characters' quite easily.

Granted, they could just watch Juno, too, a considerably more entertaining film involving a pregnant teenager. That is just one example, a show like Teen Mom takes the same situation and portrays it in the inner-city and the suburbs and the country. 'Shrugs', I've never seen it actually, I'm just presuming here.

Another advantage of reality shows, in this 'soundbite' world, is that you don't need to have seen the last episode or the next to get into the current one. That's not as true with a show like Top Chef, but in general reality shows have very basic concepts that can be picked up on mid-show even.

Let's not forget, in today's world, people like watching other people screw up. Often times, the 'bloopers' are more entertaining than the actual project, and YouTube fail videos are quite prevalent. People also seem to enjoy having a model than can look down upon. Most TV shows are full of Actors and Actresses that make bundles more money than the average viewer, and are usually considerably more attractive. 'Reality' stars, on the other hand, provide really ugly, mean spirited, or just plain messed up people, and that puts the viewer in a different position.

Finally, viewers like seeing the stars screw up as well. Hence why every 'scandal', minor or major, is often reported on a national news show like CNN.

Truthfully though, outside of chopped, ice road truckers, top chef. A lot of the reality shows are really quite enjoyable to watch, the ones that take the game show concept and stretch over a much broader scale. But yeah, some of them are awful!