In research reported in this paper, an attempt was made to isolate arousal components due to the "form" of a television program from arousal components due to the "content" of the program. The following hypotheses were formulated: (1) emotional arousal will take place in programing segments depicting violent acts, (2) arousal due to the cognitive task of decoding complex program form will take place in highly active programing segments, and (3) these two components of arousal occur independently of one another. The subjects in this study were upper-level undergraduates in a mass media course. Hypotheses one and three were confirmed, while hypothesis two was not. The results of the study are presented in both narrative and table format. (RB)