The Gender Flap

When the CBS series “JAG” is screened for test audiences, producers have noticed that while the more emotional scenes resonate with women, it’s the military drama’s “hardware” that causes the dials to rise among men.

“When you come to an action scene, the women will drop off, and the men will peak incredibly,” says executive producer Donald P. Bellisario.

The consistency of that dynamic underscores how men and women watch television differently, as well as changes in a wired-for-cable world that contribute to such a rift, prompting many couples to adjourn to separate rooms and watch TV on their own.

The major networks find attracting men especially difficult, which helps explain a dizzying series of sports TV deals as programmers seek showcases to reel in that audience at least temporarily. The frenzy peaked in January, when Disney (through ABC and ESPN), CBS and Fox agreed to pay a mind-boggling $17.6 billion for broadcast rights to National Football League games.

Beyond being drawn to different genres, research indicates that men are generally less willing to commit time to an ongoing TV series and more apt to flip around during commercial breaks.

“Men have fewer appointment shows,” says Kelly Kahl, CBS’ vice president of scheduling, adding that with the exception of sports events--such as the recent National Collegiate Athletic Assn. basketball championship--”our ability to get men in front of the set is minimal.”

Steve Kaufman, a 35-year-old Los Angeles attorney, represents an example of the challenge broadcasters face. Kaufman doesn’t pay much attention to what’s on the networks; indeed, he’s hard-pressed to name a single new series that has premiered this season, other than Comedy Central’s “South Park.”

“I don’t really have the time to care,” he says. “If it’s something worth seeing, I’ll probably get wind of it eventually.” The only series Kaufman makes a point of watching (and if necessary taping) is “Seinfeld.” He’ll tune in “NYPD Blue” if he’s home.

“A normal day for me would be [ESPN’s] ‘SportsCenter’ and [CBS’ David] Letterman,” he says. Recently added to that menu is Classic Sports Network, a cable channel that features a steady diet of great sports events from the past.

The gender disparity begins with simple math: Women outnumber men and generally watch more television. According to estimates by Nielsen Media Research, the average woman 18 and older--a population estimated at 100.6 million in the United States--tunes in 4 1/2 hours daily, about40 minutes more than average for the country’s 92.3 million adult males.

“It’s much easier to reach women any place on television. There’s more of us and we spend more time watching,” says Jean Pool, executive vice president of North American media-buying services at J. Walter Thompson. “It’s just a fact and always has been that men are harder to reach on television than women.”

The data become more significant when coupled with an anecdotal observation that hasn’t eluded women or stand-up comics--namely, men are more likely to channel-surf, flipping idly from station to station.

“[A woman] will watch a two-hour movie, and the guy will watch 15 things during the same time,” says Tim Brooks, senior vice president of research at USA Networks.

David L. Smith, president of entertainment at the survey research firm Frank N. Magid Associates, says men tend to pick about 11 channels they regularly view and check in on, compared to a “home base” of seven or eight channels for women.

Though both genders are prone to channel-surf, Smith notes, “women are much more dedicated to a show, to a channel, than men. . . . [Men] can’t resist the ability to see what else is out there.”

A Los Angeles Times poll conducted in September came to similar conclusions. In the survey, 4 of 10 men said they always or frequently change channels when a commercial comes on, compared to 28% of women; by contrast, 7% of men said they never flip around during a program, as opposed to 17% of women.

“Men are masters of the remote control, and they will surf more easily than women do. That’s clearly a challenge,” says Artie Bulgrin, vice president of research and sales development at cable sports network ESPN. “Sports, out of all the TV genres, is certainly the most vulnerable to switching.”

In descending order, men polled by The Times cited network news, network sports, cable sports, movies, comedies and cable news as the programming they watched most. Women also led their list with network news but followed with comedies, dramas, soap operas and movies.

Women were more than twice as likely to mention dramas among their favorite forms of programming, while four times as many men chose sports. Based on a breakdown of prime-time network series, the current television season’s No. 1 show among men, “Monday Night Football,” doesn’t crack the Top 20 with women.

Other programs exclusive to the men’s roster include Fox’s Sunday lineup of “The X-Files,” “King of the Hill” and “The Simpsons,” as well as NBC’s “Law & Order.” Shows unique to women were “Diagnosis Murder,” “Cosby,” “Mad About You,” “Promised Land” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

“In the broader strokes, women tend to be more story-oriented, men more action- and comedy-oriented,” Smith says.

Many popular programs cross gender lines, especially “Seinfeld,” which is second on both lists. Other shows preferred by both men and women include “Friends,” “Touched by an Angel,” “60 Minutes,” “Home Improvement,” “Frasier” and “The Drew Carey Show.”

In shows common to both, however, the percentage of the female population that tunes in is invariably higher. More than 17 million adult women watch “ER” (No. 1 and 3 with women and men, respectively) during an average week, compared to 10 million men. Along the same lines, 12.2 million women regularly view CBS’ Sunday movie, while slightly more than half as many men do.

“ER’s” vast popularity, in fact, could stem in part from its ability to offer elements that play well with both men and women--intense personal stories but also action associated with its life-or-death consequences.

“I know that when they tested the pilot, men perceived it as an action piece because of the pace,” says “ER” executive producer Lydia Woodward. While the producers make little effort to analyze the source of its popularity, she adds: “It does seem to be a show that people watch together.”

If men prove somewhat commitment-phobic in the series department, they will show up in vast numbers for big events, from the Super Bowl to a Stephen King miniseries. When CBS broadcast the NCAA basketball championship on March 30, the network’s usually paltry audience of men age 18 to 54 more than quintupled.

“Anything that can at least generate some traffic among men is helpful,” Kahl says. CBS is banking on the return of pro football in the fall to provide the means to heighten its profile among male viewers.

Still, “choice” is the operative word in television. Based on Nielsen data, roughly three-quarters of all households currently have two or more TV sets and, with increasing frequency, men, women and children scatter to watch the programs they want separately.

Even couples that frequently watch television together--like Tom and Elizabeth Fitzgerald of Anaheim, who will celebrate their 38th anniversary this year and cite “ER,” “NYPD Blue” and “Chicago Hope” among the programs they share--catch themselves tuning in separately at times.

“He’ll watch golf, [and] sometimes I’ll go watch something else while I’m working in the kitchen,” Elizabeth says.

Cable, of course, has exacerbated the problem of getting families to watch together by providing channels catering to a wide variety of highly specific interests. With the flick of a remote, viewers can be off to a news channel or a movie or indulge a more specific mood--such as the Golf Channel or the Food Network--at the first moment their attention begins to waver.

“The men have sports and movies available to them 24 hours a day, and they are attracted to those two genres,” media buyer Pool says.

In The Times’ survey, men also rated the general quality of television programming slightly higher than women did. Asked about ways to improve the medium, 4 in 10 women cited reducing violence as one method, compared to 29% of men. The same held true regarding sex, in that case by a 24% to 16% margin.

That said, women also appear to be more willing to watch programs that traditionally appeal to men than the other way around, including those that contain violence.

“Women will watch shows with action in them . . . but you can’t get men to a show that’s all about relationships,” says USA’s Brooks, noting that his network’s block of Sunday-night action shows, such as “La Femme Nikita,” attracts both men and women. “That’s why ‘Sunday Night Heat’ gets as balanced an audience as it does.”

Networks have also experienced some success tinkering with shows that possess a stronger male following in order to make them more attractive to women. NBC’s “Law & Order” replaced two members of the originally all-male cast with women, for example, in a conscious effort to make the long-running show more accessible to them.

When CBS acquired the onetime NBC series “JAG,” which focuses on Navy lawyers, the program underwent changes designed in part to expand its allure to a female audience. The show’s “Top Gun” elements, which NBC wanted emphasized, gave way in part to more courtroom drama and character interaction.

“NBC wanted it to be an all-action show, which was never my intent,” producer Bellisario says. “When I went to CBS, they allowed us to tell more personal stories, which has more female appeal, still in an action format.”

The differences between men and women’s viewing habits are also reflected in channels that specifically cater to each. Lifetime, the cable network that bills itself as “Television for Women,” has put an emphasis on movies and series that the network either produces or acquires.

“Dramatic programming tends to hold its viewers with a greater degree of completeness than those shows that are easily interrupted,” says Lifetime President and Chief Executive Doug McCormick. “We know that stories work best on Lifetime, even in message [issue-oriented] movies.”

By contrast, ESPN (like Lifetime, partly owned by Disney and the Hearst Corp.) seeks to create an environment in which men can find either a game or highlights at any given hour.

“Most of our viewers will tell you when they’re thinking of watching sports on television, the first place they’ll turn is ESPN, really without much indication as to what’s on,” Bulgrin says. “In our case, they’re tuning to the network more than a specific program.”

Given that most TV viewers now receive, on average, nearly four dozen channels, McCormick likens the current state of television to radio, where viewers tune in a station seeking merely a certain style of music.

“You don’t know exactly what you’re going to hear, but you’re going to hear something within the genre of your expectations for that station,” McCormick says.

A Lifetime-commissioned study conducted last year found that the number of women who turn to the channel first has more than doubled since 1994. Lifetime’s audience is about 70% women, mirroring the percentage of men in ESPN’s sample. In addition, two-thirds of those men who watch Lifetime do so with a woman--again, in converse proportion to women viewing ESPN.

Certain advertisers, such as those marketing packaged goods and cosmetics, buy commercial time predicated solely on the number of women reached. In daytime television, most transactions are negotiated that way, even though men constitute about 30% of the audience. The ratio of men watching increases in prime time and peaks in late night.

Differences in viewing habits also cut across age and racial lines--one reason a channel like Nickelodeon has thrived, as children watch in one room while their parents seek out more adult fare elsewhere.

“You really are talking about a personal viewing phenomena,” says Magid’s Smith, pointing to an increase in homes that have not only multiple TV sets but more than one VCR. “That’s going to greater segment the ratings.”

One of the casualties gradually inflicted by such advances is family viewing, and the days when everyone crowded around one TV together to watch “Bonanza” or “The Cosby Show.” With digital technology that promises to expand the number of channels further, the day may be coming, in fact, where Bruce Springsteen won’t sing about “57 channels and nothing on” but rather a channel with something on--viewed alone--for each and every one of us.