. Sex and science, sex and spirituality and sex for the sake of sex -- anything goes, according to International Medias Consultants Associes (IMCA) and Mediametrie, a French television audience monitoring firm, which produced the survey.
"Sex sells whatever the medium," said Sheily Lemon of IMCA.
"The 2007-2008 season was marked partly by the return of game shows, many of them games depending greatly on chance and the participants' psychological skills, and also partly by sex, sex and more sex spiced by just a little bit of spirituality," said Amandine Cassi, one of the authors of the study of viewing habits covering 2,000 networks in 82 countries or territories.
Sex rears its head in magazine programmes, documentaries, reality shows, series and sitcoms, for example in Spain with such programmes as "El sexometro" on the Cuatro channel, in France with shows like "Sexualite et amour: vos questions, nos reponses" (Sexuality and Love, Your Questions Our Replies) on France 3, and in Britain with