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I have a program that allows me to watch Japanese TV as it airs. In addition to anime, they also air variety shows and dramas. Some even air PVs ( promotional videos ).

This is from what I've seen personally.

I usually watch anime and J-dramas on streaming sites, so... yeah.

If you haven't heard of Japanese game shows then you need to go and youtube them. They are quite funny at times, other times they are quite weird (to us foreigners anyways)

I wouldn't use the definition of what American's think of when they think of game shows, but it is more like a variety show. They usually have some segment within the normal program that has the guests or "contestants" on the program go do something for some kind of prize (either consisting of a monetary value...or you guessed it...food). The two programs that seem to have made the most impact over here are the comedy troop Downtown's annual Silent Library/Do Not Laugh Punishment Game (usually showing on New Year's Eve) and Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita or basically known over here for "Human Tetris" (don't know this? Go google it). Both the silent library segment and the Human Tetris have actually been transported and are either syndicated in their own form over here (Silent library is on MTV and Human Tetris was brought over by fox, but quickly canceled within the first season). Other programs that are like a mix between game show/variety show include: Kasou Taisho- a program where contestants do skits using elaborate costumes (with the puppeteers acting like bunraku artists) (this is the program that gave us the famous "Matrix Pong") and Haneru no Tobira- this show is the basis for a lot of our "Japan's gameshows are crazy" thoughts. I believe it is the inspiration behind the American "I survived a Japanese Game Show".