Cash-strapped Hollywood still doesn’t get it.

For a number of years, the evidence has been strong that family-oriented films make more money than more violent or suggestive movies aimed at adult audiences. Producers and their associates bemoan the fact they are not making money off their offerings yet they continue to ignore facts.

Now another study, one commissioned by a group encouraging the production of family-friendly films, shows that G-rated movies are more profitable than R-rated products. Some time ago, movie analysts such as Leonard Maltin made this point, but it never seemed to sink in. The racier and more violent films keep getting made, and the profit sheets continue to suffer.

The latest study, by the Dove Foundation, showed that the average G-rated flick was 11 times more profitable than its R-rated counterpart. Yet the film industry made 12 times as many R-rated as G-rated movies in the 1989-2003 period.

While the average G-rated film earned $79 million in profit, the average R-rated production was only $6.9 million in the black.

“Basically, what we’re pointing out is that what is considered to be conventional wisdom in Hollywood does not hold up when you look at the actual profitability and compare it with what people want,” said Dick Rolfe, founder and chairman of the Dove Foundation, based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Michael Medved, a widely known film critic, commentator and author, said: “I have been writing about this phenomenon, literally, for 14 years.”

His 1992 book, “Hollywood vs. America,” has a chapter about a computer study in which he compared the box office receipts of all 600 movies Hollywood made a year earlier. He found that the average PG-rated film performed three times better than the average R-rated picture in 1991.

This trend obviously has not changed although the figures for the current years may vary. Family films tend to make more money, and one can’t help wondering how long it will take producers to recognize this and turn out more fare suitable for children.

Lately we have been reading about the disappointing year filmmakers are having at the box office despite a lot of high-profile offerings they expected to be big money-makers. Then along come family-friendly offerings that sell more tickets than the seamier types.

It is difficult to sympathize with filmmakers who continue to whine about losing money when they seem oblivious to such findings. But the really sad aspect of it all is that there are so few productions families can attend or which their youngsters can witness on their own. How about a little less “art for art’s sake” and more movies everyone can attend and enjoy?