Political opinion and analysis outside the mainstream rarely are found on television talk shows, and it might be thought that this state of affairs is a product of the political agenda of the television stations themselves. In fact, television stations are driven by the same economic forces as sellers of more tangible goods. Because they must attempt to capture the largest possible share of the television audience for their shows, they air only those shows that will appeal to large numbers of people. As a result, political opinions and analyses aired on television talk shows are typically bland and innocuous. An assumption made in the explanation offered by the author of the passage is that ['there are television shows on which economic forces have an even greater impact than they do on television talk shows', 'the television talk shows of different stations resemble one another in most respects', 'each television viewer holds some opinion that is outside the political mainstream, but those opinions are not the same for everyone', 'there are television viewers who might refuse to watch television talk shows that they knew would be controversial and disturbing']