Why do some TV scenes include many sex scenes when it obviously leads to worse ratings? [closed]
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It is obvious that fewer people will watch a TV show if it includes many sex scenes. Children will be disallowed to watch it, families with children that enjoy TV together will search for alternatives, conservative and/or religious people will avoid it, and for similar reasons, it may be banned or not broadcasted in entire countries.
On the other hand, I imagine very few people would not watch a TV show that they already enjoy if it were stripped of all its sex scenes. Take Game of Thrones or Spartacus, but delete all sex scenes. Will substantially fewer people watch them? I very much doubt it.
So, given that, why do these shows include that many sex scenes? Is my premise wrong (it does actually lead to increased viewership), or are there other reasons?
Best Answer
Here's a case study: True Blood ran on HBO from 2008–2014. The Vampire Diaries ran on CW from 2009–2017. Both series deal with vampires, romance, and the supernatural; in fact, The Vampire Diaries has been called "a PG-13 version of True Blood." True Blood, being on HBO, could (and did) feature graphic sexuality. The Vampire Diaries, being on a broadcast network, could not.
We therefore have two shows with similar subject matter that ran around the same time. Here are how these two shows did in the Nielsen ratings, according to their respective Wikipedia pages:
The fact that True Blood consistently beat The Vampire Diaries over their runs is all the more impressive given that True Blood is on a premium cable network, and as such is only available in about 1/3 of US households. It seems pretty obvious that the show with a lot of sex scenes was much more popular than the one without.
Of course, it's true that one data point doesn't prove anything. There could be any number of reasons why one particular show does better than another (production values, better performances, marketing, etc.) I should also confess that I have never watched a minute of either of these shows, and the comparison may not be all that great. Still, this is probably the closest thing to a controlled experiment that we can get in the world of TV, and the conclusion seems to be pretty clear.
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Henry Cavill and Russell Crowe on sex scenes and kissing | The Graham Norton Show - BBC
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