Gameshow hosts 'all powerful' over contestants The experiment was broadcast as part of a documentary entitled Game of Death for French network France 2 in 2010, but the analysis and findings have just been published in the European Review of Applied Psychology. Recruiters found 80 contestants to take part in the fake show, called Zone Xtreme, which completed the deception by using a real television audience as well as well-known host. The study was a twist on 1960s research by US academic Stanley Milgram, who examined why ordinary people were prepared to commit horrific atrocities in Nazi Germany. He found 80 per cent of his subjects inflicted pain on a stranger when ordered to do so by a figure in authority such as a scientist. Researchers concluded: "It has long been known that television and television hosts had influence on viewers. We suspected they could also have prescriptive powers to [influence] people's behaviour, including cruel and immoral behaviours. Until now this had never been shown. The French experiment reveals that this "authority figure" is far broader than previously realised.