A series of studies of adults suggested that watching gloomy news segments or dramas made people so depressed that they could not focus on commercials, and reacted negatively to them. The grim news simply did not create the atmosphere that advertisers know they need to sell their products. For most advertisers, numbers and mood are not the only raison d'etre. Corporate responsibility and image count, too. That's why some advertisers have company codes, guidelines that specify the avoidance of programs with excessive violence or sex, negative stereotypes of minorities and glorifications of drugs and alcohol.
Most companies also prescreen individual episodes.
But such measures don't always work. For another, the wording of company codes is often vague and open to different interpretations. Finally, codes are applied haphazardly. Now's survey appeared to ignore their own codes by sponsoring programs singled out by the UCLA study for excessive violence. Perhaps these companies are truly ignorant of the clash between their stated policies and the programs they sponsor.