Interesting. This is what i thought after my initial horror. It would be hard for a tv show to generate enough funds for such a mission. I dont watch reality shows as i find that even watching a moment of one makes me want to throw myself off a building to save myself from dumbing myself and hating people. But i do know that these shows can be popular and im assuming that most of the money raised would be through corporate sponsorship. It'd be like the Coke, Macdonalds, Nestle, Nike, Pfizer and Fox Mission. The first flag they put up will probably be a billboard.
I watched a Stephen Hawking doco ages ago where he was explaining that mars colonisation was such a difficult thing for us to fathom and achieve as a society because it was such a long term goal. The people funding the investment would not be the ones to reap or even see the benefits of it. It would require a concerted effort by many countries to fund and manage such a mission, that would really be a future investemnt for our children's children.
Personally i think that initial colonisation on Mars would be an unpleasant experience, although it would become better after some kind of bisosphere/bidome is created.
Perhaps this cliche is currently the most 'practical' way to start a colony on mars, getting the big multinational corporations to fund it and using reality tv contestants as guinea pigs, and generally make a riduculous farce out of probably what should be one of the most amazing achievements for humanity. The big corporations would make money throughout the mission and use the whole thing as a marketing campaign. This whole gross and stupid idea probably started as a marketing campaign.
Ironically people would probably shit themselves way worse if the US, Russia and China or the UN got together to collaborate on a space mission.