Ratings War: Brazilian Prime-Time Television Filled With Sex, Nudity

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazilian television, which was pretty steamy already, is filling prime time with nudity and semi-explicit sex in a network ratings battle.

Viewers have been favored with such wonders as an all-nude rock band and a near-complete striptease.

What many call the TV Sex War has inspired heated debate of electronic eroticism and how much is too much.

It all started in April when Manchete TV, Brazil's third-largest network, launched the prime-time soap opera ``Pantanal'' about a wealthy ranching family in the vast Pantanal wetlands of central Brazil.

Manchete had an instant smash. For the first time, its ratings surpassed those of Globo TV, the leading network and the world's fourth-largest after ABC, CBS and NBC of the United States.

``Pantanal,'' broadcast six nights a week and scheduled to run through December, has an excellent cast and features breathtaking views of the wetlands.

Was it the scenery that attracted huge audiences and started the whole country talking? Not a chance. It was near-explicit love scenes, the penchant of female stars for bathing in the river, the total frontal nude of an underwater swimmer in the opening credits.

As Manchete celebrated its success, Globo counterattacked with a week of steamy, uncut movies running opposite the soap opera.

Other networks joined in.

A University of Sao Paulo survey in late June counted 1,145 displays of nudity and 276 scenes of explicit or implicit sex in one week of television.