TFN's got to overcome some steep compitition:
Spike TV goes after the manly man with action programming
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
By MATEA GOLD
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Where have all the guys gone?
Television executives have been scratching their heads in recent years as young, male viewers -- always elusive -- have become scarce, lured away by Xboxes, iPods and other tech gadgets and online entertainment, some of which they probably don't want their mothers to know about.
Spike TV is hoping to bring some of them back by cultivating a more manly image -- call it the cable network for the anti-metrosexual.
To put it plainly: "The Rock is Spike," explained Spike President Doug Herzog. "Jude Law is not Spike."
Three years after executives proclaimed it the "first network for men," Spike has adopted a new slogan ("Get more action"), replaced its bubble-letter logo with hefty block print and scheduled a slew of action-oriented programs, including "The Ultimate Fighter" and "Blade" -- all part of an effort to sharpen the channel's identity.
"I think everybody understood the notion that it's a network for men, but what did that mean?" said Herzog, who also heads Spike's sister networks Comedy Central and TV Land. "We kind of landed on our notion of what it is: an unapologetic, action-oriented home base for guys.
"Action means car chases and dust-ups and fistfights and Bruce Willis movies but also means the action of the card table, the action of Vegas and beautiful women," he said. "If it's testosterone-driven, bold and unpretentious, we think there's room for it."
Spike is not alone in making a pound-on-your-chest appeal to men. Lately there seems to be a resurgence in macho-themed marketing: Burger King is running a new "Eat like a man" campaign for its Texas Double Whopper -- cholesterol and weight gain be damned -- and Miller Lite ads feature celebrities debating "Man Laws," including how soon you can make a play for a woman who dumped your best friend.
Some advertisers already view Spike as a good place to find a captive audience of young men; spots for Burger King, Toyota and Coors dominate the network's commercials.
Still, it remains to be seen if Spike's pumped-up image will draw a substantial share of guys back to the television screen when they have so many other pursuits vying for their attention.
In 2000, 18- to 34-year-old males made up 9.5 percent of the American television viewing audience; so far this year, their share has dropped to 9 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Keith Richman, chief executive officer of Break.com, a user-generated entertainment Web site aimed at young men that attracts around 900,000 unique users a day, said Spike's new strategy makes sense.
"There's no channel that really talks to guys on their level like they're guys and says, 'We know you're not pretty, but we embrace you,' " he said. "Whether you'll be able to get the guys off the Internet back to watching TV is another matter. They're competing with being outdoors and the new gadget that just came out and 'Nacho Libre' at the box office and guys' desire to go out and meet girls. Lay on top of that our natural proclivity to be fickle."
Those distractions haven't hurt only the television industry, of course. Movies and music sales have also slumped in recent years, in part because young men -- once the driving force of popular culture -- have so many entertainment options.
Spike's attempt to recast itself as rough-hewn is the latest incarnation of the channel, which premiered as the Nashville Network in the 1980s, then was renamed TNN in 2000 and switched to a pop entertainment format. Three years later, the Viacom-owned network was relaunched as Spike TV, setting out to capture young male viewers.
But with a grab bag of programming that included sexpot cartoon "Stripperella" and episodes of "Star Trek," the network's original mandate proved too broad, and its effort stalled.
So far this year, Spike has averaged 1.27 million viewers in prime time -- around the same number it drew in 2004 -- 15 percent of them (about 192,000) men ages 18 to 34. More than one-fifth of the prime-time audience is women 18 to 49. That means the network draws fewer young men, on average, than Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim," TNT, ESPN, USA or Comedy Central during prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Spike executives hope the network's beefed-up approach will propel it past its competitors.
Action is key
Key to the network's rebranding is a new slate of action programs in development, including "Amped," a drama about a mysterious outbreak in Los Angeles, and "The Kill Pit," which follows a bank robbery gone awry. Also in the works: "Afro Samurai," an animated series about a black samurai produced and voiced by Samuel L. Jackson and scheduled to premiere in November.
"We think we will consistently have something that will interest the audience that nobody else does," said Pancho Mansfield, executive vice president of original programming. "Fun is a big part of it. We're not out to be provocative to the critics necessarily."
The network has high hopes for its first original scripted series, "Blade." Based on the popular Marvel superhero, the drama features Kirk "Sticky" Jones as an immortal warrior engaged in a battle with a vampire underworld seeking to destroy the human race. The series is produced by David S. Goyer, who wrote the screenplays for the successful "Blade" movie trilogy that starred Wesley Snipes.
"It's a great franchise -- it has its own brand, its own following," Mansfield said. "There isn't anything like 'Blade' on. This is a bit grittier and darker than most things on television."
Another tent pole of the network's new strategy is its partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the top producer of the increasingly popular mixed-martial-arts fights.
Spike recently renewed its deal with UFC through 2008, and no wonder: The third season of "The Ultimate Fighter" -- a reality competition among 16 mixed-martial-arts fighters around the world -- drew an average audience of 2.2 million viewers.
"It is to boxing what snowboarding is to skiing: faster and more extreme and more dangerous," Herzog said. "And, most importantly, your father hates it."
AI
