• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 7, 2007

Quick quiz: -- what gets the most viewers, sexy or family TV programs?

You're wrong -- at least for the first week in December.

Tuesday night CBS ran the animated classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Its ratings beat those for "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show," which ran on CBS two hours later, by almost 7 million viewers (14.3 million to 7.4 million viewers).

Rudolph got nearly double the ratings of the notorious lingerie show! That's right, sex doesn't always sell. (Don't worry -- the holidays are still a few weeks away.)

What does this say, and what will family-oriented consumers' groups do now? Perhaps yawn at tall, leggy, skimpily dressed women with angel's wings.

"Secret" had a modest gain this year over last, up 8%. The reunion of the Spice Girls may have juiced things a bit. Still, the trend for the show has been going down virtually ever year since it originally debuted on ABC in 2001. when it had 12.4 million viewers. Tuesday night's numbers were 40% lower than six years ago.

What is going on here? Are viewers 40% less interested in sex on TV in the winter of 2007? Are they bored? Maybe they can get better stuff elsewhere - free on the Internet. Of course, the marketer in me thinks viewers sniffed out "Secret" years ago, realizing it's just an hour-long infomercial to sell women's undergarments.

Maybe the story-telling is a bit better with the reindeer. The "Secret" models pretty much offer up the same quickie tales, with short, hip-sashaying walks into viewers' living rooms.

What does this say about CBS? What it has always promised -- that the network is a broadcaster in the truest sense of the word, providing something for everyone.

Meanwhile, this week the New England Patriots-Baltimore Ravens "Monday Night Football" game on ESPN turned out to be the highestwatched cable TV show ever -- 17,522,000 viewers.

Well, at least violence-oriented programming still performs true to form.