Certainly Linda's Senate bid must play a role in WWE's current product. It seems all-too-obvious that Linda's decision to run for a Senate seat is not out-of-the-blue. As previously stated, her political involvement has grown gradually since she ran for that School Board position a couple years back, a move I suspect was to test the waters politically and allow her to acclimate herself to that environment. As a whole, the McMahons are a very savvy family and know their matriarch's political aspirations would get body-slammed pretty quickly if they were collectively producing the product made popular in the "Attitude Era." Surely they have taken this into consideration. However, it's also far from the only factor at play here.
One guiding force I have not seen mentioned in this thread is the influence of the USA Network on the WWE's product. When WWE returned to USA from SPIKE TV in October 2005, there were a significant number of caveates to the switch. One such caveate was that WWE relinquished 100-percent of advertising time to the USA Network itself, making the WWE's flagship program RAW a cash cow for the channel. In doing so, this also gave USA a vested-interest in the type of product WWE produces.
As a point of reference, when WWE jumped to SPIKE TV in Sept. 2000, the E retained 100-percent of RAW's ad revenues (just under $85 million in '02). However, to get their product back on USA, which reaches a significantly larger audience than SPIKE TV (a fact people should remember when bashing TNA for it's 1.0 rating), WWE relinquished all -- yes ALL -- of the ad sales from RAW to the cable network. As a result, it stands to reason that USA would have included in any contract negotiations with WWE a degree of accountability for their product to Network officials. In essence, USA probably has a significant influence on saying what is and is not permissable for broadcast.
Whereas WWE might have been content with the adult-oriented product because the company factored in things such as merchandising sales, PPV buys, house show attendance, etc., to even out any possible ad revenue losses because their product alienated certain potential buyers, USA does not have that incentive. The cable network has only their advertising revenue to think about, and as a result, almost assuredly makes their voice known in WWE creative's direction, considering that, in turn, links directly to their advertising revenue/sales.
Regardless of whether WWE produces a "PG" or "PG-14" product, the company heavily targets the extremely lucrative 18-49 Male demographic so popular with advertisers. However, the more "PG-14" product might also very easily alienate many potential advertisers, particularly those more directly geared toward a "PG" audience. From a network perspective, this would be a no-no. By pushing WWE to eliminate key "PG-14" elements from the program, the product can be expanded to its current "PG" ranking, in turn opening it to advertisers wishing to reach the 8-14 viewer demographic in addition to the 18-49 male demographic. Over-all, it makes the product more widely accessible, marketable, and, as a result, much more [potentially] profitable for the network.
Am I mistaken to think that the network has voiced its disapproval before in certain key areas, some of which have been reported on the wrestling boards? Certainly the case of Muhammad Hussein comes immediately to mind. Network officials voiced their serious dislike for the character and angle, and within weeks he was gone.
Therefore, to me, it only stands to reason that other, similar instances happen all the time, but perhaps on a level where it's not necessary to report upon it or so casually the IWC never catches wind of it. Most likely the WWE creative team has been provided simple parameters to work within and does so on a weekly basis, creating the "PG Era" we know so well. This happens all the time with other network programming. Why should we think the WWE would be any different?
