Television shows featuring clean, family-friendly content are more popular than their more sexual and violent counterparts, according to Melissa Caldwell of the Parents Television Council.
"The ratings data supports the conclusion that cleaner reality shows are more popular," Caldwell said at Monday night's American Forum: Sex and the Media. "ABC, for example, was doing miserably in the ratings and then they introduced 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' and it saved that network from oblivion."
Vicky Rideout of the Kaiser Family Foundation disagreed and said viewers turn to sexually-oriented shows more because humans are innately curious about sex and seek to be educated by the shows.
"The subject that is probably most fascinating and most fear-inducing for the average teenager in America today is sex," she said. "The best place to go to hear and see how other people are handling the types of situations you might be facing is through a TV show."
Caldwell pointed to the WB's top-rated show, "7th Heaven," as an example of an extremely popular show that is traditional and morally grounded. "People are interested in good shows, they're interested in good stories, they're interested in interesting characters," Caldwell said. "They're not necessarily interested in just explicit sexual material."
The expansion of broadcast networks and addition of basic and pay cable channels have led to cultural changes that allow for more sexually oriented shows, said David Folkenflik of The Baltimore Sun. "Those stations have basically felt that they have the liberty to broadcast all kinds of fairly explicit programming," Folkenflik said. "HBO ... drew in a lot of viewers for things like the 'Real Sex' series and other fairly gratuitous stuff."
Caldwell maintained that networks try to appeal to the younger generations by broadcasing more sexual shows, but that their decent shows that are less graphic with more focus on plot take off instead.
"'Touched by an Angel' was a huge hit for CBS and they were almost ashamed of the success because that's not the image they want to project," Caldwell said. "They want to be hip and cool and edgy and appeal to a younger audience."
New reality-based shows featuring gay participants such as "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy" and "Boy Meets Boy" are direct evidence of more welcoming and receptive programmers, School of Communication professor Rodger Streitmatter said.
"It seems like to me 'Queer Eye' and 'Will and Grace' are the first generation of actual sexuality and the forerunner of what will be sexual activity among gay characters," Streitmatter said.
Whether viewers are more interested in sexually oriented shows or not is irrelevant to Rideout.
"We're not condoning or opposing sexual content on television. We're saying let's try to get the most benefit out of it that we can," Rideout said.
Moderated by SOC professor Jane Hall, the American Forum offers four evening programs each semester in which journalists, elected officials and public policymakers can debate the changing mix of issues of the day.
