'Sex' Proves More Popular Than Ever

HBO’s “Sex and the City” wrapped up its fourth summer run Sunday night, and the numbers show that the series has more viewers than ever. The show’s ratings are up 35% over last year’s, reports The New York Times. This is in spite of the fact that, as The Times points out, the four female protagonists — Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon — appear older, wiser and sadder than they did when they and their candid talk first took to the air. “At first,” Parker, 36, the series’ star and co-producer, told The Times, “the audience was the women the show was about, women in this city (New York) at this time of their lives. Now, we have many more men, and married women, and we’re getting people from the outer boroughs and the rest of the country.” For HBO (which, like PEOPLE, is part of AOL Time Warner), “Sex” is an even more valuable property than the hit Mafia series “The Sopranos,” The Times postulates, because it generates more episodes: 18 of “Sex,” compared to 13 of “Sopranos.” This season, “Sex” also helped establish the new comedy series, “Six Feet Under,” which followed it Sunday nights. On top of which, there seems to be no end of “Sex” in sight. Said HBO original programming president Chris Albrecht: “We’re not looking at the end of this series yet. I think there is plenty to keep us going.”