This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

If you are a TV critic, it's hard not to look at last Tuesday's election results and realize that you are covering a medium that's probably still out of touch with large segments of the country.

Red-staters, security moms, conservative Christians - whatever label you pin on the people who helped give President Bush four more years, they are not the people you are likely to see showing up as sympathetic characters on ''Will & Grace,'' ''The O.C.'' or ''Saturday Night Live.''

Some of that shouldn't be surprising: Commercial television, certainly, is largely pitched toward the people Madison Avenue, not George Bush or John Kerry, is seeking to reach.

Advertisers aren't so much interested in our hearts and minds as they are in our pocketbooks. They may prefer to think of themselves as uniters, but in the cold, hard numbers of demographics they are dividers, separating young from old, rich from poor, male from female. Say what you like about those of us from blue states, but a lot of us still have money to spend.

And yet things are changing. While broadcast TV continues to chafe at the FCC restrictions many believe keep it from competing creatively with cable, CBS, for instance, has been winning audiences back with twists on the traditional cops-and-robber franchise like ''CSI'' and ''Cold Case'' that red-staters probably prefer to, say, NBC's ''Joey.''

Or do they?

It's probably dangerous to try too hard to link the country's mood to what we watch on television.

CBS' soulful ''Joan of Arcadia,'' for instance, is down in the Nielsens this year, and ABC's ''Desperate Housewives'' is a hit, to the distress of some family-values types.

But if I were going to crawl out on a limb - and that's what they pay me for - I would predict that:

l Cable will benefit from an FCC crackdown on broadcast-TV standards that's likely to get even tougher in a second Bush term. Whether the majority of Americans want more nudity and strong language on television, there's clearly a significant enough minority to keep networks like HBO, Showtime and FX in business.

l Gay writers and producers in Hollywood may for now, at least, have a harder time pitching gay-themed programming to the major networks, whose suits, however personally liberal, can't have failed to notice the results of all those gay-marriage-ban votes. Marginalizing that audience, however, may only increase cable systems' incentive to pick up some of the gay-themed channels now in development.

While the Fox News Channel will continue to prosper, its growth could level off in the absence of a tangible threat to the Republican majority. A Kerry victory, on the other hand, would probably only have increased Fox News' hold on the cable-news audience, as frustrated Republicans sought comfort from like-minded talking heads.

NBC's ''The West Wing,'' assuming it lasts past the end of this season, will continue to twist itself into a pretzel in an attempt to attract people who were never likely to watch a show about policy and politics in the first place.

CBS' ''Survivor'' will continue to be the one show on television in which conservatives and liberals regularly put aside their differences to defeat common enemies.

Donald Trump's hair will show no improvement whatsoever, no matter how big his tax cut becomes.

Channeling

Country Music Association Awards: KUTV Channel 2, tonight, 7. The 38th Annual awards show honoring country music. From the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

The Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best: KSTU Channel 13, tonight, 7. Virgin chief executive Sir Richard Branson leads a group of 16 CEO wannabes in this clone of "The Apprentice." Utahn Shawn Nelson is one of the contestants.

Frontline: KUED Channel 7, tonight, 8. A look at how advertisers use marketing research and public relations to get their message out.

Scrubs: KSL Channel 5, tonight, 8:30. Julianna Margulies (''ER'') guest stars as the daughter of a patient and a malpractice attorney.