DeepSeaDan:
Just a reality check my friend. Starting pay in the Gulf as a Tender is about $9.00/hr. You'll need to keep your nose clean, your lips zipped & work your butt off for 2-3 years before getting a chance to "break out". Contractor working conditions vary considerably - talk to as many working divers as possible for any given employer you wish to work for.
Reputable companies are breaking guys out in a year right now, average seems to be 18 months. They are busting their humps though, and the money is average (tenders can make $300/day due to the hurricane.) The problem is the $17k in school loans for commercial dive school.
Bigger money exists, but it goes to those with experience & reputation. Sat. is still where it's at for the largest slice of cake, but it usually ( I got in after 2 years but that was because I was the only Diver-Medic in the area & they needed one NOW - a bit of a lesson in itself, I reckon ) takes years of excellent work to "get in the pot".
Lots of guys are getting their shot now, and some don't really know what they are getting into. There was such an elite group of sat divers in the gulf because work was so thin that now they don't have enough guys to work the systems they have, so they are putting a lot of guys either without experiance or with padded resumes in with ill results, and their is a lot of jockeying trying to get the experienced guys.
Dive schools will often make big promises on the subject of job opportunities to fill their classes - this has been going on for many years. You need to get a real-world picture outside of the classroom.
Everyone can get a job right now. It's just a matter if you'll like the job or not. The market is rich now, with the insurance companies paying out the nose for these jobs, but unless we have another really bad hurricane season in the next three years, all the work will be gone, and all the divers will be out of work again (or at least making nothing working shallow.)
As far as the Discovery channel show goes, I've caught a little bit of it, and like everything on the Discovery channel, it is not nearly as cool as it seems after editing. I'm on a sat boat right now (safety officer/medic) working in 638', and it's just a paycheck. The only guys who are having any 'fun' are the guys in the pot, making $1000/day, but they earn that most days. The rest of us just try to keep the system running so they can keep working.
As with what DeepSeaDan says I will agree with you on most, the pay at first just coming out of a commercial diving school very light but if you stay in the business for 2-5 years the % of you getting a good pay dive is very high and if you have welding and other industrial skills even better. If this is another hurricane year you can bet there will be some good dive pay in the GULF. 
