What Do Men Want?

By James Poniewozik

The men of America don't know it, but they have a problem. Sure, they make most of the money, hold most of the Senate seats and have most of the orgasms. But until now, there has been, scandalously, no cable network specifically set aside for them.

TNN also had a problem. Formerly the Nashville Network, in 2000 it decountrified and became the National Network. The name--which sent the resounding message "This network is available in all 50 states!"--left viewers unsure what TNN was, except those who thought it was still about Nashville and were surprised to find it running Blind Date instead of Tim McGraw videos. Once a perennial cable top 10, the network saw its ratings drop to 14th place by May.

On June 16, TNN proposes to solve both problems at once as it rebirths itself as Spike TV, "the first network for men." TNN, which already drew a two-thirds-male audience with pro wrestling and sci-fi reruns, saw a chance to claim a new niche in cable. And it doesn't hurt that men, especially those under 35, are an attractive audience for advertisers, always on the lookout for another venue for Dumb and Dumberer ads. TNN picked Spike, says the network's president, Albie Hecht, because the name is "active," "smart and contemporary" and "unapologetically male" (as in, Is that a spike in your ratings, or are you just happy to see me?). But the choice led to some bad p.r. last week when director Spike Lee sued TNN, claiming it was associating itself with his name for "commercial gain." Somewhere, watching Nick at Nite in his den, Nick Nolte is kicking himself.

TNN's metamorphosis is an example of how media and marketing are reshaping the idea of American manhood. Once, the very idea of young men bonding over what it means to be a young man would have seemed pretty, well, woman-y. That changed with the resurgence of men's magazines like Maxim, which built a circulation of more than 2.5 million on a philosophy of manhood built on a love of gadgets, lowbrow jokes and almost naked starlets. (Not coincidentally, Maxim has expressed interest in starting a men's channel too.)

Spike's idea of what men want has a lot in common with Maxim's. For starters, it appears that Pamela Anderson would be perfect if only she had bigger breasts and was a cartoon. She provides the voice for Stripperella, an animated action show premiering June 26 about an exotic dancer who fights crime. Debuting the same night are Gary the Rat, with Kelsey Grammer as the voice of a lawyer who turns into a rodent, and a revival of the scatological toon Ren & Stimpy. Later Spike will roll out the celebrity-car show Ride with Funkmaster Flex, reality series with names like Most Extreme Elimination Challenge and a smattering of health and business news.

Cars, gross-out jokes, T. and A.--not the most elevated definition of manhood, but Hecht says it's all delivered with a wink. "[Men] know we're buffoons," he says. "We know that we can be made fun of." This notion is of a piece with the have-your-cheesecake-and-eat-it-too approach of men's TV from The Man Show to Coors' "Twins" beer commercials: we'll ironically acknowledge that we're drooling idiots in exchange for getting to look at boobies. But TV marketing coups don't necessarily appeal to viewers' better angels. The women's network Lifetime is one of cable's great success stories, largely on the strength of an endless succession of movies that portray women as rape and abuse victims. Its rival Oxygen launched in 2000 with an idealistic plan to target ambitious, educated feminists--then found out that only about four of them felt the need to be empowered by a cable channel.

And while young men are not exactly underserved by TV (Comedy Central? Two ESPNs?), Spike may let them believe they are. "If we all worried about who was really underserved, we'd still have only ABC, CBS and NBC," says Charlie Rutman, president of the ad-buying firm Carat USA. Like any well-targeted niche channel, Spike TV needs men to say, "I wonder what's on Spike?" the way they say, "I wonder what's on ESPN?" In Hecht's marketing lingo, the idea is to build "an emotional connection to the brand."

O.K., but if you're targeting young guys, do you really want to throw around the phrase "emotional connection" like that? Hecht backpedals. "That's not an on-air term," he says. "Spike's a great name for a dog. Spike will be man's new best friend." Catchy slogan, but Spike will also need strong marquee programs--more like South Park than Gary the Rat--if this dog is going to hunt.