Existing theory suggests that women in the premenstrual and menstrual phases of their hormonal cycle would select and enjoy nonarousing television programs, sucy as nonhostile comedy and game shows, and would avoid action drama and hostile and arousing programs. To test this theory, female undergraduates from telecommunications and journalism Courses at Indiana University (n=105) were given a list of programs from which to select (including dramas, game shows, and humorous programming), shown segments from a variety of television programs and asked to indicate their enjoyment of each, and asked also to provide data on their position in the menstrual cycle. It was found that the women selected more drama than any other type of program and that the selection of comedy was related to position in a woman's cycle, with the selection of both nonhostile and hostile comedy varying as a function of cycle position. Selection of violent and nonviolent programming was submitted to a one-way analysis of variance revealing that the selection of nonviolent programs is not significantly related to a woman's menstrual cycle position, but that women in the critical (premenstrual and menstrual) cycle phases tend to select more violent programming for viewing than women in other phases of the cycle. However, the types of violent programing preferred during critical cycle phases were oriented toward verbal hostility rather than physical violence. These findings in part support the theory that women select content that will help them cope with negative moods that vary as a function of the menstrual cycle. (CRH)