I bet if they tried one solid month of old fashioned genteel programming, advertising it well, their ratings would rise rather than fall. I can get filth on the street, why do I need a TV?
Prime time TV became nearly unwatchable for me a number of years ago. I confess, somewhat sheepishly to having watched about 20 minutes of "Friends" over 3 different episodes. These three were blatantly prurient. Now, I celebrate what folks can do in private, as they get to know one another...pretty well ala Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yet, parading it on prime time TV seems a little "over the top" for me.
In all genre of prime time TV, crudeness and crassness isn't creeping into the mix, it's cascading.
I still like to watch ancient reruns. It strikes me that actors in those days were able to convey all ranges of emotions without crassness or crudeness. It must be that there just isn't that much talent about these days.
If you take sex and speech devoid of imagination out of the scripts, from what I have seen over the last couple of years, you would need 52 minutes of commercials every hour. Come to think of it, that would be an improvement. Commenting on the mating habits of dogs isn't funny, anyway.