Word: network
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...would have had to bleep the F word--and it knows better than anyone else what you can't get away with on TV today, having been on the receiving end of Janet Jackson's Super Bowl Sunday "wardrobe malfunction." But an aggressive FCC was only one of network TV's problems last season. Another was the sudden, steep drop-off in young male viewers, the most elusive and therefore coveted audience for advertisers. As of April, according to Nielsen Media Research, prime-time broadcast ratings among men ages 18 to 34 were down more than 13% from the previous...
...very frustrating," says Jordan Levin, CEO of the WB. "Free TV is in the public interest, and yet laws are facilitating audience growth for cable." But regulation is the networks' trade-off for free access to broadcast spectrums worth billions of dollars. So the new network schedules seek to lure guys within those constraints. There are cop shows and action shows, series set in casinos and boxing rings. Fox is relying on male-oriented sitcoms like Method & Red, with hip-hop stars Method Man and Redman. NBC unveiled Summer Olympics promos that made swimming and gymnastics look like X Games...
...action-and-bikini-heavy cop show Hawaii. Guys these days are used to video games in which they can orchestrate their own car chases, crashes and shoot-outs, with the violence--and even sex--rendered with cinematic accuracy. To them, even a slick action show in its safe-for-network version may seem as dated as Tom Selleck's Magnum, P.I. mustache...
...what's a network to do? One is following the classic dating advice: Act like you're not interested. A few years ago, UPN focused almost entirely on such boy bait as WWE Smackdown! and Star Trek: Enterprise. But last year the Tyra Banks reality series America's Next Top Model became UPN's biggest hit--and, despite its scantily clad, size-0 catwalkers, its audience is as girly as a little black dress. UPN now says it will complement Model with young-female-friendly romantic comedies and dramas like Kevin Hill, starring the hunkalicious Taye Diggs...
Then there is that old school of thought that network TV is a feminine medium: women make most viewing decisions, so it's best to create shows that women will seek out and men will tolerate. NBC's Reilly points to its Friends spin-off, Joey, centered on a character who's adorable to women and likable to guys. (Just in case, the network cast shapely Drea de Matteo as Joey's sister.) What, after all, do most men want? To be in the good graces of a woman. She's the one who has the remote. --With reporting...