Sex and Violence on Network Television will Continue to Increase

American television shows will continue their gradual trend toward more sex, vulgar language and violence, all in the name of audience market share and competition with cable channels, says noted television programming researcher and University of Alabama professor Dr. Jennings Bryant.

“There’s no question this is television’s sexiest season and I think there’s also no question that any last vestiges of family television have gone by the wayside,” Bryant says. “What is resulting, however, is audience polarization. You have active viewers looking for that kind of content and others who are working hard to keep from getting it. It’s an interesting situation that has sounded the death knell of the true mass audience.

Bryant says network television has seen an incremental increase in the use of sexiness, violence and sensationalism every year for the past decade and that trend will continue.

“If you had a big jump in a single year there would be a public backlash,” Bryant says. “But when you have small increases, people who slightly habituated the prior year and have become accustomed to the more explicit television quickly adjust to the new form and many may even seek out the more explicit show.

“The bounds of propriety get pushed back ever so slightly each year,” Bryant continues. “We have moral-judgmental filters that we bring to television that circumscribe our viewing and if those filters are hit too abruptly our enjoyment is
impaired and quite often people will stop watching the program. But because it has happened so gradually, we have become more tolerant.”

Television executives have decided their key audience is the 18-34 year-old viewer, which is the demographic that advertisers covet. “Television probably has overdone it in that regard because that audience really isn’t in front of the television as much as networks, cable channels and advertisers would like to believe,” Bryant says.