Networks explicitly demanded sex and violence in exchange for prime-time slots.

Evidence

In the Senate hearings, creators of dramatic series described pressure from broadcasters to inject more violence into their programs (Senate Hearings, 1962). Ivor Tors, a creative producer with a track record of highly rated shows, structured his programs to entertain viewers in informative and inspiring ways without gratuitous violence. His popular series Sea Hunt had only five violent incidents in 155 episodes. After loss of control of a show he produced for CBS, Tors added a clause in his contract stipulating that if the network or sponsors inserted anything in a show that could adversely affect youth, his name should be removed and he would be free to leave the show. He began production for an NBC series, Man and the Challenge, in which a doctor explores human capabilities in ways that dramatized how interesting science can be. In a directive conveyed by a media subordinate, Tors was told that he could have a prime-time slot: “But the price was that we cannot call our doctor a doctor or scientist, and we have to put a great deal of sex and violence into the show” (Senate Hearings, 1962). When he objected, he was reminded that violence was required for competitive purposes. “We are against a show which is ‘Wanted Dead or Alive,’ and in that show he said the hotrod cowboy kills a man a minute. This is what you have to remember.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 808

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to system-level accounts (Milgrom, social control) of institutions corrupting individual moral judgment — here the institution is the broadcast industry pressuring creators.
• CANDY: Sea Hunt had only five violent incidents across 155 episodes, yet pressure to add violence was relentless — a striking ratio worth sharing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 808