The Problem With Men

This observation won’t startle a lot of you, but when it comes to watching television, men are idiots.

Programmers at the networks, at least, have reason to think so, as they try to satisfy a creature with the attention span of a flea at a dog show. To them, men are a source of nagging frustration, seldom committing to programs that don’t feature touchdowns, explosions, a person being mauled by a wild beast, flatulence-related humor or Pamela Anderson in skimpy attire. The ideal male show would combine all of the above, though Fox hasn’t quite perfected it yet.

Beyond providing fodder for stand-up comics, this male infidelity to a single channel (call it the “7-minute itch”) has implications for the television business as well as the TV audience.

Men are so elusive, so flighty in their viewing habits that networks pay an enormous premium to acquire material capable of enticing them to slacken their grip on the remote control for any length of time.

We are in the midst of one of those rare periods for broadcasters when hordes of men simultaneously view a program thanks to the National Football League playoffs, culminating in the Super Bowl on Jan. 31.

Four networks, including ESPN, agreed to fees exceeding the gross national product of Paraguay or the Dominican Republic ($17.6 billion, to be precise) for the privilege of televising football over an eight-year stretch. Sure, they lose hundreds of millions on the deals, but for a few hours during the weekend and Monday evenings, men return to them.

It’s obviously a gross stereotype to lump all men together, but the statistics do paint a bleak picture. So in addition to the obscene sums spent on sports rights, where else can TV’s shortcomings be attributed to the fickle fingers of men? The answer lies in both what’s on the air, and what isn’t.

Take wrestling, for starters, regularly among the most popular programming on cable’s USA and TNT networks. Who’s watching people body slam each other? Kids and teenagers, yes, but by and large, men.

Then there are those Fox specials constructed around video of real-life mayhem, with titles like “When Animals Attack” and “World’s Worst Drivers.” Lots of men flock to such carnage, even when it’s scheduled opposite an urbane, Emmy-winning show like NBC’s “Frasier.”

Men generally enjoy seeing people hit and kick things, so local TV stations and cable networks load up their schedules with series like “Hercules,” and film packages such as TNT’s “Saturday Nitro” or FX’s new “Macho, Macho Movie,” which will showcase movies starring Dolph Lundgren, Lorenzo Lamas and in its upcoming premiere--surprise!--Pamela Anderson.

The most telling indictment of men’s TV tastes, however, can best be summed up in two words: Jerry Springer. The host’s circus sideshow act ranks ahead of all daily syndicated series except “Friends” and “Seinfeld” reruns in men’s demographics, more than doubling the audience for any other talk show and far surpassing the overall leaders, “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune.”

With high-brow options like these competing for men’s attention, sports remains the one reliable draw for TV networks, which explains why NBC executives sprang back flips of joy when the NBA settled its labor lockout. Having lost football to CBS and “Seinfeld” to whatever its namesake does these days, NBC’s prime-time viewership among men in the 18-to-54 age bracket has plummeted 25% this season. Lacking basketball would have made that headache more severe.

Sports’ value doesn’t end with ratings. For networks, these assets represent the ultimate power tools, luring men back to see promotion for ongoing series while engendering goodwill among media buyers, investors, industry analysts and owners of affiliated TV stations, all groups teeming with--you guessed it--men.

Moguls like Rupert Murdoch and Michael Eisner thus wring immeasurable benefits from owning franchises like the Dodgers and Angels. Even power brokers savor chatting about left-handed relief pitchers, but one suspects few of them start conversations with “Hey, don’t you think ‘90210’s’ getting a little stale?” or “I just love ‘Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.’ ”

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Though not to suggest everyone should devote their evenings to “Masterpiece Theatre,” the programs men won’t give a chance are troublesome as well. To paraphrase a line from comic Chris Rock, relationship-driven dramas rife with emotion are, to many men, what kryptonite is to Superman. Networks put them on and men disappear.

Granted, women tune in plenty of dreck that’s unique to them, and many programs enjoy popularity among both sexes. Yet based on Nielsen Media Research data, women almost invariably turn out in greater numbers for TV’s best series, including male-lead shows such as “Everybody Loves Raymond” and gritty dramas like “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order,” which one might expect a wider swath of men to embrace.

Scanning the top 20 prime-time series among adults age 18 to 54, only “Monday Night Football,” “The X-Files” and “The Simpsons” draw a higher percentage of men than women.

Blame nature or nurturing, but this disparity begins at an early age. Fox has announced plans for separate cable services catering to boys and girls, continuing the steady march toward the day when we have channels dedicated to every conceivable group, from “Beautiful Teenagers With Problems” (“All ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ all the time”) to “Guys Named Bob.”

Fortunately for the networks, women outnumber men. Nielsen estimates the population of women 18 and older at nearly 102 million, compared to 93.4 million men. Still, programs must attract a portion of the male audience to become a breakout hit of “ER,” “Friends” or “Home Improvement’s” magnitude.

The irony is that despite major inroads by women in power positions, the TV executives plagued by male viewing patterns (not to be confused with male-pattern baldness, another source of vexation) remain predominantly men. Middle-aged men thus find themselves trying to decipher what women want to see.

The same holds true for most of the TV critics touting “Ally McBeal” and “Felicity,” series whose primary audience is generally composed of young women and girls. (Sitting through as much television as they do, critics actually share more in common with laboratory mice than any particular age group or gender.)

Television would improve if this rebuke had some effect on men, but why kid ourselves? The average guy reading this probably got antsy and flipped to another column 12 paragraphs ago. Heck, any man deserving of the name has finished two other sections by now, assuming he wasn’t sidetracked by department store lingerie ads along the way.