Police pursuit as entertainment in the modern world

There might not be a POLICE PURSUIT every Friday in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, but it sure seems like it.
I watched today's edition of cops vs. eluding driver live on KTLA-TV online.
A pickup truck driver led officers down freeways and surface streets from Orange County to the San Fernando Valley, the pursuit both fast and slow, depending upon the amount of degradation caused to the vehicle's tires.
I picked up the televised pursuit in its final half hour and watched its denouement -- the truck doing "donuts" on the freeway, wheel rims smoking since the tires had been shredded away.
It struck me as a thoroughly modern entertainment. Reading about the pursuit later, on LOS ANGELES news websites, I had no sense of the mesmerizing hold the chase held for me as I watched live on television.
Is there something in the modern mind that feeds off such an episode? That certainly seemed the case for me, this morning.