And now, a word from our sponsor: 'Gasp!'

Gorgeous scenery! Girls in bikinis! Just add a Ferrari and some talking frogs, and "Temptation Island" would look like an hour-long advertiser's dream.

But despite high ratings and the kind of youthful audience companies crave, the Fox network is having trouble attracting big-name advertisers.

The reason might surprise viewers accustomed to thinking of advertising and ethics as mutually exclusive concepts: too much sex. The racy content in the current wave of reality TV is making some advertisers question the line between good marketing and good taste.

As a result, many big-name companies have chosen to vote themselves off shows displaying questionable content. For example, companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's held off placing ads on last weekend's debut of NBC's XFL, a smash-mouth football league co-produced by the World Wrestling Federation.

Grappling with such decisions is nothing new for advertisers, but many are starting to find it more difficult to

reach their target audience efficiently and remain true to their corporate scruples.

"Even as our society has become more permissive, in some cases it's making advertisers more conscious about who they are," says Brian Goodall, president of Hampel/Stefanides, a New York-based advertising agency.

"And as network television raises the bar for sex and violence, middle-America companies will be more vigilant on what they choose to sponsor."

After "Temptation Island" first aired, Sears, Quaker Oats, and Best Buy refused to have their ads run on the program, in which four unwed but committed couples test their devotion to one another other by frolicking with scantily clad singles. (In an ironic example of turnabout, Fox reportedly turned down a contraceptive commercial that its makers wanted to air during "Temptation Island.")

From 'Maude' to 'Murphy'

Advertisers fleeing controversy is nothing new. But in the past, companies tended to balk at sponsoring shows with divisive political and social content, rather than purely risque material.

In the 1970s, some sponsors pulled ads when a character on "Maude" chose to have an abortion. More recently, certain advertisers chose to avoid "Murphy Brown" and "Ellen" because of the controversial social issues they portrayed.

While skittish sponsors often avoid politically difficult programs, those decisions are generally easy to make, since those kinds of shows have clearly delineated demographics.

With sex and violence, these decisions are much more difficult. The most coveted demographics are teens and young adults, so, often, an advertiser's primary target audience will be watching a show with questionable content.

"We have a phrase: 'We like to fish where the fish are,' " says Sean Foster, vice president of marketing for National Discount Brokers (NDB), a New Jersey-based financial services firm.

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